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ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  ALLEN 


BY   CHARLES  LEWIS  SLATTERY 


Felix  Reville  Brunot  (1820-1* 

A  Civilian  in  the  War  for  the  Union; 
President  of  the  First  Board  of  Indian 
Commissioners.  With  portraits,  Illustra- 
tions, and  a  map.     Crown  octavo. 

Edward  Lincoln  Atkinson   (1865-1902) 
With  Illustrations.     Crown  octavo. 

The  Master  of  the  World:    A  Study  of 
Christ.     Crown  octavo. 

Life  Beyond  Life:  A  Study  of  Immortality. 
Crown  octavo. 

The  Historic  Ministry  and  the  Present 
Christ:    An  Appeal  for  Unity. 
Crown  octavo. 

Present  Day  Preaching.     Crown  octavo. 

Alexander  Viets  Griswold  Allen  (1841- 
1908).    Small  octavo. 

LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

NEW  YORK,  LONDON,  BOMBAY,  AND  CALCUTTA 


ALEXANDER 

VIETS  GRISWOLD 

ALLEN 

I  84I-I 908 

BY 

CHARLES    LEWIS    SLATTERY 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AN-D    CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  SHTH  8TBXE  1\  NEW  YOKE    • 
LONDON,  BOMBAY,  /gKD CAvCUTA  , 


f3  7.  a? 

■  J7 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
Longmans,  Green,  and  Co. 


THE- PLIMPTON- PRESS 

[  W  D  •  O] 
NORWOOD  •  MASS  •  V  ■  S  •  A 


PREFACE 

IN  these  days  of  many  books  the  biography  of  any 
man  must  be  justified  by  some  solid  reason.  The 
reason  for  this  book  is  that  it  is  the  life  of  a  man  rare 
in  any  age,  a  really  great  teacher,  —  moreover,  a 
teacher  of  that  most  difficult  and  most  vital  of  sciences, 
religion.  Dr.  Allen  was  also  theologian  and  historian, 
and  it  would  have  been  possible  to  try,  at  least,  to  write 
an  account  of  his  place  in  the  succession  of  New  Eng- 
land theologians,  or  among  the  interpreters  of  events. 
But  I  have  thought  it  wiser  to  let  his  simple  story  tell 
itself,  asking  the  reader  to  watch  the  growth  and  power 
of  one  who  made  it  his  chief  task  to  teach  young  men 
the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  as  revealed  in  history  and 
experience. 

He  left  no  School  or  Party  in  the  Church.  His 
pupils  belong  to  all  schools  and  parties.  They  do  not 
agree  with  all  he  taught  or  wrote.  But  they  call  him 
master,  because  he  made  their  faith  robust,  enthusi- 
astic, sure. 

I  am  indebted  to  many  of  his  pupils,  who  have 
aided  me  in  various  ways,  for  their  remembrance  of 
him.  Bishop  Lawrence,  Professor  Palmer,  Mr.  W.  W. 
Taylor,  Dean  Hodges,  Professor  Nash,  and  Professor 
Drown  read  the  book  in  manuscript,  and  gave  me 
valuable  help.    To  Mrs.  Allen,  his  sons,  and  his  sister,  I 


vi  PREFACE 

acknowledge  the  grateful  liberty  to  tell  the  full  story. 
Since  he  had  lived  in  one  house  for  twenty-five  years, 
and,  feeling  the  sacredness  of  the  written  and  printed 
page,  had  saved  every  letter,  almost  every  circular, 
the  material  for  a  biography  was  overwhelming. 
This  Mrs.  Allen  sorted  and  sifted,  and  though  what 
came  to  me  was  enormous,  it  was  only  a  fraction 
of  what  she  examined.  Without  her  help,  the  book 
would  have  been  impossible. 

I  have  been  at  great  pains  to  make  the  book  reason- 
ably short,  that  it  might  bear  its  message  to  men  in  the 
Church,  whether  or  not  sympathetic  with  his  point  of 
view.  I  trust  that  it  may  help  earnest  people  to  be 
confident  that  the  freest  search  for  truth  can  bring 
one  only  to  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Supreme  Master  of  Life. 

C.  L.  S. 

Grace  Church  Rectory, 

New  York, 

22  February,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  A  New  England  Rectory i 

II  A  Western  College 13 

III  Bexley  Hall 28 

IV  Andover  and  Lawrence 38 

V  Beginnings  of  the  Cambridge  Theological 

School 55 

VI  The  Unknown  Teacher 64 

VII  Becoming  Known 78 

VIII  Recognition 89 

IX  Fame 100 

X  A  Theological  Portrait 114 

XI  The  Approach  of  a  Great  Sorrow    ...  124 

XII  Trials  and  Victories 142 

XIII  Christian  Institutions 166 

XIV  The  Life  of  Phillips  Brooks 183 

XV  Rome 198 

XVI  Warnings 209 

XVII  Chicago 223 

XVIII  The  Appeal  for  Help 231 

XIX  Freedom  in  the  Church 246 

XX  Happiness  and  Peace 263 

Bibliography 283 

Index 287 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Alexander    Viets    Griswold    Allen    at    the    Age 
of   54 Frontispiece 

Alexander  Viets  Griswold  Allen  at  the  Age  of  8  4 

View  of  Guilford  from  the  Rectory    .      .      .      .  38 

The  Study  at  Phillips  Place 94 

No.  2,  Phillips  Place 214 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

1841.  Alexander  Viets  Griswold  Allen   born  at  Otis, 

Massachusetts. 
1845.   His  father  Rector  at  Nantucket. 
•  1855.   His  father  Rector  at  Guilford,  Vermont. 
1858.   Confirmed  by  Bishop  Hopkins. 
1859-62.   Student  at  Kenyon  College. 
1862-64.  Theological  Student  at  Bexley  Hall. 
1864-66.   Student  at  Andover. 

1865.  Ordered  Deacon  by  Bishop  Eastburn. 

1866.  Ordained  Priest  by  Bishop  Eastburn. 
1865-67.  Minister,  St.  John's,  Lawrence. 

1867.  Instructor,  Episcopal  Theological  School,  Cambridge. 
1869.   Full  Professor. 

1872.   Marriage  to  Elizabeth  Kent  Stone. 

1877.  First  Journey  to  Europe. 

1878.  D.D.,  Kenyon  College. 

1882.  Article  in  the  Princeton  Review. 

1883.  Bohlen  Lectures. 

1884.  The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought. 
1886.  D.D.,  Harvard  University. 

1889.  Jonathan  Edwards. 

1889-90.  Professorship  at  Harvard. 


xii  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

1892.  Lowell  Lectures. 

1892.  Death  of  Elizabeth  Kent  Allen. 

1894.  Summer  in  Edinburgh. 

1894.  Religious  Progress. 

1897.  Christian  Institutions. 

1900.  Life  and  Letters  of  Phillips  Brooks. 

1 90 1.  D.D.,  Yale  University. 
1901-02.   Year  Abroad. 

1904.  Dudleian  Lecture. 

1905.  Lectures  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 
1907.  Marriage  to  Paulina  Cony  Smith. 
1907.  Freedom  in  the  Church. 

1907.  Phillips  Brooks:  1835-1893. 

1908.  Dr.  Allen  died  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts. 


Alexander  Viets  Griswold Allen 

CHAPTER  I 

A   NEW   ENGLAND    RECTORY 

184I  -  1859 

I.  OTIS 

AMONG  the  beautiful  hills  of  Western  Massachusetts, 
in  the  quiet  rectory  at  Otis,  Alexander  Viets  Gris- 
wold Allen  was  born,  May  4,  1841.  He  was  wont  to  say 
that  the  star  in  the  ecclesiastical  firmament  at  the  time 
of  his  birth  was  Tract  Ninety;  so  that  it  was  inevitable 
that  he  should  have  a  theological  destiny.  When  his 
father  gave  him  the  name  of  the  gentle  Bishop  Griswold, 
it  must  have  seemed  that  his  destiny  was  doubly  sure; 
and,  one  bright  September  afternoon,  at  his  next  visitation 
to  Otis,  the  Bishop  baptized  the  child. 

The  father,  Ethan  Allen,  a  native  of  Londonderry,  Ver- 
mont, but  of  Rhode  Island  ancestry,  was  a  graduate  of 
Brown  University;  and,  while  in  college,  dropping  his 
Puritan  heritage,  was  confirmed  by  Bishop  Griswold.  He 
had  a  sympathetic,  kindly  temperament,  with  a  strain  of 
humanism,  which  doubtless  had  much  to  do  with  bringing 
him  into  the  Church  of  the  Prayer  Book.  He  began  life 
as  a  teacher,  and  was  for  several  years  a  tutor  in  the  Page 
family  in  Virginia.  He  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  Southern 
life,  and  grew  quite  accustomed  to  the  institution  of  slavery, 
since  he  had  a  domestic  slave  appointed  to  his  exclusive 
service.  He  never  knew  quite  how  to  care  for  himself, 
and  his  children  would  smilingly  hint  that  he  had  been 


2  A  NEW  ENGLAND  RECTORY 

spoiled  by  too  much  attention  in  Virginia.  Living  after- 
wards in  Rochester,  New  York,  he  determined  to  enter  the 
ministry,  and  studied  under  the  guidance  of  Henry  John 
Whitehouse,  then  the  Low  Church  Rector  of  St.  Luke's, 
afterwards  the  High  Church  Bishop  of  Blinois.  Ordained 
at  the  age  of  forty,  married  at  forty-three,  he  came  in  due 
time  to  live  in  Otis.  Here  his  three  children  were  born, 
Henry  John  Whitehouse,  Alexander  Viets  Griswold,  and 
Adelaide  Louisa. 

The  mother  of  these  children  was  Lydia  Child  Burr,  of 
Rehoboth,  Massachusetts.  Her  family  had  its  beginning 
in  America  through  a  Rev.  Jonathan  Burr,  an  English 
rector  who,  silenced  for  his  Puritanism,  fled  to  Dorchester 
in  New  England,  in  1635.  Thereafter  the  family  were 
Puritans  of  the  straitest  kind,  and  Mrs.  Allen,  though  con- 
forming to  the  ancient  Church  of  Jonathan  Burr,  never 
quite  forgot  the  Puritan  gloom  with  which  in  his  American 
days  he  thought  it  fitting  to  surround  religion.  She  had 
the  sense  of  family  which  attached  to  eighteenth  century 
New  England,  and,  at  the  same  time,  went  cheerfully 
through  her  meagre,  hard-working  life.  With  a  salary 
never  exceeding  three  hundred  dollars,  it  was  her  frugal 
and  patient  hand  which  kept  the  wolf  from  the  door. 

During  a  great  religious  revival  in  1820,  Lydia  Burr 
was  much  moved  by  several  popular  preachers  who  came 
into  neighbouring  pulpits.  She  was,  as  she  afterwards  wrote, 
continually  praying  that  she  might  receive  some  powerful 
conviction  —  a  conversion  something  like  St.  Paul's. 
Standing  at  the  door  one  evening  at  twilight  she  heard  her 
name  called  in  a  low,  familiar  voice.  She  waited  to  hear 
the  call  repeated,  though  no  one  was  within  sight.  Hear- 
ing no  more,  she  believed  that  the  voice  had  come  to  tell 
her  that  she  must  prepare  to  meet  her  God.  "So,"  she 
said,  "I  cast  myself  unreservedly  upon  the  mercy  of  God, 
and  felt  that  I  could  love  Him,  should  He  in  justice  cast  me 
off  for  ever  as  an  unworthy  sinner."     Still  she  pleaded  for 


PARENTS 


3 


assurance  of  God's  will  concerning  her.  "One  morning," 
she  said,  "after  I  awoke,  as  I  lay  meditating  (I  think  my 
eyes  may  have  been  closed)  I  saw  Jesus  hanging  over  me, 
with  His  arms  extended  as  though  to  receive  me,  and  I  saw 
the  prints  of  the  nails  in  His  blessed  hands,  and  I  knew  that 
it  was  Jesus,  whom  I  had  been  long  seeking  in  the  dark, 
and  He  looked  down  upon  me,  with  His  beautiful  face  filled 
with  love  and  compassion,  and  said  in  a  soft,  sweet  voice, 
'  Fear  not,  O  ye  of  little  faith '  —  and  vanished  out  of  my 
sight.  But  He  left  my  soul  rejoicing  with  joy  unspeakable 
and  full  of  glory."  "Ever  since,"  she  wrote  in  1875,  "He 
has  been  to  me  the  'chief  among  ten  thousand,  and  alto- 
gether lovely."' 

It  was  this  devout  and  mystical  mother  who  went  about 
her  daily  task  for  love  of  husband  and  children,  with  all 
the  practical  hardheadedness  of  a  woman  bent  only  upon 
making  two  distant  ends  to  meet.  One  or  two  of  her 
relatives  grew  rich  with  the  same  thrift.  She  someway 
transmuted  a  little  money  into  a  happy  home,  and  there 
was  enough.  And  to  the  end  she  would  wedge  high  theology 
between  medicines  and  thick  flannels. 

II.  NANTUCKET 

Early  in  1843  Bishop  Griswold  died,  and  he  was  succeeded 
by  his  assistant,  Bishop  Eastburn,  a  militant  Low  Church- 
man. Bishop  Eastburn  had  marked  the  Rev.  Ethan  Allen 
as  a  man  of  force  who  could  be  trusted  not  to  adopt  the 
ways  of  what  he  was  pleased  to  call  the  Puseyites;  so  he 
urged  him  to  accept  an  appointment  to  St.  Paul's,  on  the 
island  of  Nantucket,  where  a  High  Church  clergyman  had 
introduced  what  the  Bishop  believed  to  be  dangerous 
novelties.  Thither,  accordingly,  the  Allen  family  removed 
in  1845  — the  year  °f  Newman's  withdrawal  from  the 
English  Church. 

Alexander  was  only  four  years  old  at  the  time  of  this 


4  A  NEW  ENGLAND  RECTORY 

change,  and  the  ten  years  of  his  father's  rectorship  in  Nan- 
tucket mark  the  period  of  his  first  conscious  experiences. 
His  first  copy-book  still  remains,  with  his  name  written 
first  in  his  mother's  hand,  then  copied  page  after  page. 
When  sentences  began,  she  wrote  for  him,  "Be  good,  little 
Zanny,  your  mother  will  say;  she  will  whisper  it  soft  in 
your  ear,  so  that  you  need  not  forget  it,  my  dear."  Pages 
follow  with  nothing  else  on  them;  then  texts  from,  the 
Bible,  snatches  of  hymns,  and  bits  of  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles.  One  imagines  how  the  anxious  mother  looked 
up  from  her  sewing  —  she  was  perpetually  reducing  her 
husband's  clothes  for  the  little  boys  —  and  gave  her  com- 
ment on  the  finished  page.  The  small  yellowed  book  tells 
a  story  of  singular  pathos. 

In  his  ninth  winter  he  recorded  in  this  book:  "On 
Tuesday,  the  fourth  day  of  February,  1851,  father  bought 
me  a  Prayer  Book,  which  cost  thirty  cents.  I  was  very 
much  pleased  with  it.  I  wanted  Sunday  to  come  very 
much,  so  that  I  might  use  it.  It  was  bound  very  neatly 
with  gilt  edges.  Henry  had  one  just  like  it.  Adelaide 
was  going  to  have  one  Sunday,  as  Harriet  Worth,  her 
teacher,  is  going  to  give  it  to  her."  He  went  to  church  as 
soon  as  he  could  walk.  The  annual  visit  of  the  Bishop  was 
the  great  occasion  of  the  year,  and  while  the  Bishop  was  in 
the  rectory,  Alexander  never  left  the  room.  When  asked 
what  he  intended  to  be  when  he  grew  up,  he  always 
promptly  replied,  "A  bishop."  When  he  was  ten,  he 
became  curious  to  hear  other  preachers;  and  his  father 
allowed  him  to  make  his  investigations.  He  looked  in 
upon  the  Baptists  and  Unitarians,  but  was  not  stirred. 
Finally,  discovering  the  Methodists,  he  came  home  jubi- 
lant. "Oh,"  he  exclaimed,  as  he  rushed  into  the  rectory, 
"he  pounded  and  he  hollered  —  he  was  splendid.  When 
I  grow  up,  I'm  going  to  be  a  minister  —  and  preach  like 
that!" 

Notwithstanding,  he  settled  down  to  the  quiet  religious 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD   ALLEN   AT  THE  AGE   OF   8 


BOYHOOD  IN  NANTUCKET  5 

life  of  his  father's  house  contentedly.  At  family  prayers 
the  children  took  their  turns  with  the  parents,  each  read- 
ing two  verses  of  the  chapter.  The  boys,  grown  to  be  men, 
often  wondered  what  they  made  of  certain  Old  Testament 
books;  but  they  read  it  every  word,  over  and  over,  in 
regular  order.  It  was  part  of  religion.  When  he  was 
writing  of  the  Puritan  household  of  Phillips  Brooks's  boy- 
hood, he  said  that  he  understood  it  perfectly,  for  it  was 
exactly  like  his  own  home.  A  feature  of  New  England 
life  so  characteristic,  he  thought,  should  be  told  once  for 
all;  so  he  put  himself  to  serious  pains  to  tell  it  thoroughly. 
It  was  to  him  no  foreign  tale. 

In  the  evenings  the  family  sat  together  in  "the  keeping- 
room."  Here  the  father  read  aloud  Helen  Mulgrave,  or 
Jesuit  Executorship,  and  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin;  and  on  Sun- 
days, Leigh  Richmond's  Annals  of  the  Poor.  If  neighbours 
came  in  and  began  to  talk  of  troubles  in  the  church,  the 
children  were  all  sent  off  to  bed;  no  ecclesiastical  gossip 
was  allowed  to  come  to  their  ears. 

There  was,  sad  to  say,  a  good  deal  of  bickering  in  the 
congregation  at  Nantucket.  The  "Puseyites"  were  by  no 
means  pleased  to  have  the  Evangelical  rector  thrust  upon 
them  by  the  Evangelical  bishop.  One  spring  a  malcontent 
packed  the  Easter  meeting,  some  of  the  voters  not  having 
been  in  the  church  for  years.  This  meeting  turned  the 
chief  layman  out  of  office,  and  applied  to  the  Bishop  for  a 
new  rector.  Though  Bishop  Eastburn  promptly  declared 
the  meeting  illegal,  the  tempest  did  not  blow  over  without 
giving  agony  to  a  good  man  and  a  good  woman.  Of  all 
this  miserable  partisanship  the  children  then  knew  prac- 
tically nothing.  It  was  their  father's  ruling  that  they 
should  not  know.  But  the  sons  knew  later,  and,  with  filial 
love,  the  iron  entered  into  their  souls,  and  they  hated  par- 
tisanship of  every  shade  for  ever  after. 

While  at  Nantucket,  Alexander  fell  into  the  way  of  going 
over  to  the  church  Saturday  afternoons.     He  would  sweep 


6  A  NEW  ENGLAND  RECTORY 

and  dust  the  church.  One  afternoon  he  begged  his  father 
and  mother  to  go  with  him.  While  they  sat  in  a  pew,  he 
ran  up  into  the  organ  loft  and  began  playing  hymn  tunes. 
He  had  been  teaching  himself  by  ear.  His  father,  always 
fond  of  music,  was  delighted.  Alexander  now  received  a 
few  lessons;  but  he  was  almost  completely  self-taught. 
He  played  the  organ  for  all  the  church  services  both  in 
Nantucket  and  later  in  Guilford. 

There  was  only  one  month's  holiday,  and  the  children 
remained  on  the  island  from  year's  end  to  year's  end. 
Once  the  boys  were  permitted  to  go  off  the  island  for  a 
picnic:  returning  late,  they  found  their  father  waiting  for 
them  in  the  darkness  at  the  wharf.  They  always  saw 
beyond  his  severity  to  his  tender  care.  He  was  to  them  a 
sort  of  providence. 

As  Alexander  approached  his  fourteenth  year  he  began 
to  keep  a  journal,  and  this  became  more  and  more  intro- 
spective and  religious.  His  Saturday  half-holiday  he 
spent  splitting  wood  for  the  church.  Early  Sunday  morn- 
ing he  made  the  church  fire.  At  both  services  he  was 
organist  and  chief  singer.  He  listened  attentively  to  all 
his  father's  sermons,  recording  text  and  subject,  and  noting 
the  degree  of  his  approval.  It  is  small  wonder  that  this 
boy  of  thirteen  thought  his  Sunday  as  strenuous  as  any 
weekday. 

Meantime,  the  small  congregations  were  growing  smaller, 
and  the  salary  was  paid  with  pitiful  irregularity.  The  boy 
noted  in  his  journal  the  injustice  of  it.  His  mother  went 
home  to  Rehoboth;  the  children  were  boarded  about  by 
kind  parishioners.  Christmas-eve  came.  "We  shall  not 
hang  our  stockings  to-night,  for  Father  has  nothing  to  put 
into  them,"  he  wrote.  He  did  not  complain.  He  listened 
harder  than  ever  to  his  father's  sermons,  and  the  journal 
records  his  boyish  loyalty  and  admiration.  The  sermon 
on  "The  time  is  short,"  on  the  last  day  of  1854,  he  pro- 
nounced to  be  the  best  sermon  he  had  ever  heard. 


BOYHOOD    CONVICTIONS  7 

In  midsummer,  1855,  a  call  came  from  the  Church  at 
Guilford,  Vermont,  and  the  brave  and  patient  rector  of 
Nantucket  resigned  his  ten  years'  charge.  While  he  was 
gathering  means  to  start  a  new  home,  his  wife  and  children 
spent  eight  months  at  the  pleasant  farm  at  Rehoboth. 

It  was  in  Nantucket  that  Alexander  Allen  began  to 
formulate  some  of  his  theological  convictions.  He  once 
told  that  when  he  was  a  slip  of  a  lad,  after  the  burning  of 
the  church,  he  was  taken  one  Sunday  to  the  Congrega- 
tional Sunday-school;  and,  after  all  the  years,  he  recalled 
that  the  lesson  was  about  Christ  and  the  Rich  Young 
Ruler.  And  while  the  teacher  was  elaborately  explaining 
why  our  Lord  loved  him,  it  shot  across  the  boy's  mind  that 
it  was  queer  that  the  teacher  did  not  think  that  Christ 
simply  took  a  liking  to  him.  Then  the  High  Church  rector 
of  Nantucket  had  left  a  High  Church  Sunday-school 
library  behind  him,  which  Bishop  Eastburn  forgot  to  de- 
stroy. Such  books  as  On  the  Distant  Hills  appealed  to 
Alexander's  aesthetic  nature  —  partly  because  the  Low 
Church  books  were  deadly  dull  —  and  so  even  in  the 
Nantucket  days  it  was  determined  that  if  Alexander 
became  a  bishop,  he  could  not  be  of  the  school  of 
Bishop  Eastburn. 

III.    GUILFORD 

In  the  spring  of  1856  Mrs.  Allen  and  her  children  went 
to  the  Guilford  rectory.  "Guilford,"  wrote  Alexander  in 
his  journal,  "I  pronounce  without  hesitation  to  be  the 
most  pleasant  home  I  ever  had."  A  friendly  village  among 
the  hills  shading  the  upper  Connecticut  valley,  it  appealed 
to  the  boy's  sensitive  eye.  The  white  church,  stand- 
ing among  the  graves  of  past  parishioners,  was  the  church 
of  the  whole  neighbourhood.  The  rectory  door-bell  rang 
from  morning  to  night,  and  the  rector  was  consulted  on  all 
subjects.     The  salary  was  still  small  and  irregularly  paid, 


8  A  NEW  ENGLAND  RECTORY 

but  the  people  loved  Ethan  Allen,  and,  only  when  he  was 
gone,  appreciated  their  thoughtlessness. 

Shoes  and  music  books  were  forthcoming  at  every  de- 
mand, whatever  else  must  be  denied.  Each  Sunday  night 
Alexander  sang  hymns  to  his  father,  accompanying  himself 
on  the  melodeon.  When  guests  came,  he  was  always 
called  in  to  sing.  Bishop  Hopkins  was  especially  pleased, 
and  gave  the  boy  his  friendship. 

The  sons  went  to  Brattleboro  to  school,  spring  and  fall. 
In  the  winter  their  father  taught  them.  Alexander  formed 
the  habit  of  studying  in  the  vestry-room  of  the  church. 
Here  also  he  went  to  write  in  his  diary  and  his  journal,  both 
of  which  he  kept  with  strict  care  during  these  years  in 
Guilford. 

The  chief  parishioner  of  the  Guilford  Church  was  General 
Phelps  of  Brattleboro,  a  warm-hearted  and  high-minded 
army  officer,  who  discerned  the  character  of  Ethan  Allen, 
and,  giving  him  admiration  and  love,  walked  each  Sun- 
day out  to  the  village  church.  The  general's  sister,  Miss 
Helen  Phelps,  offered  to  teach  the  boys  French,  and  she 
taught  them  other  things  besides,  inciting  them  to  write 
English,  and  kindling  in  them  ambition,  in  which  perhaps 
their  father  was  deficient.  She  wished  Henry  to  go  into 
the  army,  but  she  never  had  any  doubt  that  Alexander 
was  destined  for  the  Church.  It  was  her  steady  faith  in 
the  possibilities  of  a  great  venture  that  made  the  penniless 
rector  dare  to  send  his  two  sons  to  college  in  the  same  year. 

The  long  walks  to  Brattleboro  kept  the  boys  in  robust 
health.  People  remarked  that  if  Henry  always  had  a  book, 
Alexander  was  apt  to  be  planning  a  debate  at  the  Lyceum, 
or  making  preparations  for  a  "sing,"  or  meditating  a  bit 
of  drawing.  Henry  was  sober;  Alexander  was  abounding 
in  life,  a  joyous  boy.  Alexander,  with  his  affectionate  nat- 
ure, was  obviously  his  mother's  favourite,  and  he  was  a 
trifle  grieved  because  he  felt  that  his  father  loved  Henry 
better,  as  the  first-born.     Though  both   boys  were  shy, 


BOYHOOD  DIVERSIONS  9 

Alexander  talked  more.  When  the  parents  were  away  and 
guests  came,  Alexander  was  always  thrust  forward  to 
entertain.  "Alec,"  said  the  rector  to  Bishop  Hopkins 
one  day,  "probably  knows  less  than  Henry,  but  he  can 
make  more  use  of  what  he  knows."  "A  desirable  quality," 
said  the  Bishop. 

The  Lyceum  debates  developed  his  powers  of  expression. 
The  questions  discussed  in  1857  included  such  subjects  as 
these:  "Is  a  professional  life  preferable  to  any  other?" 
"Is  the  practice  of  shaving  the  beard  commendable?" 
"Is  the  following  of  the  fashions  of  the  day  more  repre- 
hensible than  drunkenness?"  "Does  the  Republic  stand 
in  more  danger  from  Romanism  than  from  African  Sla- 
very?" He  would  speak  at  first  ten  or  twenty  minutes; 
but  gradually  spoke  longer,  till  he  filled  an  hour. 

Another  absorbing  interest  was  a  boyish  love-affair.  Just 
before  his  sixteenth  birthday  he  wrote  in  his  journal  that 
he  was  much  distressed  because  it  was  reported  all  over 

Guilford  that  he  and  A were  engaged.      He   found, 

he  said,  solid  comfort  in  Vergil's  description  of  Rumour. 
The  report  was  not  true,  but  both  children  were  quite 
sure  that  it  would  be  true  some  day,  and  they  wrote  each 
other  letters  of  undying  love  and  no  end  of  religious  advice. 

A was  constantly  sending  him  proof- texts  to  fortify 

his  loneliness  and  depression. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  anywhere  a  more  complete 
picture  of  a  boy's  religious  growth  than  his  diaries  and 
journals  present.  Some  account  must  be  taken  of  the 
phraseology  of  the  day,  which  fell  into  pious  jargon  some- 
what easily.  He  himself  later  came  to  distrust  the  religious 
journal,  because  it  was  never  quite  clear  whether  it  was 
intended  for  oneself  alone,  or  was  written  with  the  self- 
conscious  pose  that  some  one  in  future  might  read  it.  When 
all  this  is  admitted,  however,  these  journals  reveal  a  whole- 
some boy,  frankly  meeting  the  religious  awakening,  and 
accepting  eagerly  its  evident  meaning.    The  language  is 


io  A  NEW  ENGLAND  RECTORY 

often  unreal,  but  it  is  easy  enough  to  discern  the  growing 
earnestness  of  purpose.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  there  was  ever  a  time  when  he  could  have  thought  of 
anything  but  the  ministry;  but  the  conviction  filled  with 
colour  and  life  as  the  months  passed.  Under  the  date  of 
Sunday,  October  17,  1858,  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  "To-day 
I  was  confirmed.  It  is  the  happiest  day  and  the  most 
important  of  my  whole  life.  I  have  made  a  total  surrender 
of  myself  to  my  Maker  and  my  God."  There  is  no  doubt 
that  he  had. 

His  father  gave  him  rather  feverish  books  on  self-exam- 
ination to  read.  On  his  birthday  his  mother  had  given 
him  Bickersteth  on  Prayer;  and  his  father,  Spurgeon's 
Sermons.  And  he  searched  his  simple,  guileless  life  to 
discover  the  glaring  faults  that  Christians  were  expected  to 
find.  "My  besetting  sins,"  he  wrote  a  few  days  after  his 
birthday,  "are  vanity,  pride,  envy,  uncharitableness,  hard- 
ness of  heart,  indeed  every  imaginable  sin  dwells  in  that 
fountain  of  corruption,  my  sinful  heart."  This  sounds 
very  serious  till  we  come  to  details.  "I  will  endeavour," 
he  went  on,  "to  act  more  soberly,  to  leave  off  jesting  and 
joking,  and  such  things,  which  are  un-Christlike."  A  week 
after  his  confirmation  he  returned  to  a  similar  mood:  "To- 
night for  the  first  time  since  my  confirmation,  I  have  felt 
a  little  desponding  and  low-spirited.  ...  I  have  sinned 
grievously  in  word,  thought,  and  deed."  Then  there 
appears  the  cause:  "I  have  just  finished  a  little  work  on 
self-examination  and  my  sins  seem  great  in  my  eyes."  He 
had  the  faults  of  boyhood,  but  none  of  the  grosser  faults; 
and  the  poor  books  he  was  reading  made  him  accuse  him- 
self of  the  sin  of  being  glad  with  the  natural  human  joy 
which  God  himself  had  given  to  him.  One  likes  to  believe 
that  he  laughed  and  sang  with  a  free  heart  all  day  long, 
till  he  wound  his  way  in  the  dark  among  the  gravestones, 
to  sit  down  by  his  candle  in  the  shadows  of  the  vestry-room 
and  write  his  self-accusing  journal  for  the  day. 


TEACHING  ii 

Part  of  the  despondency  came,  no  doubt,  from  the  fact 
that  he  had  exhausted  the  life  of  Guilford  and  was  ready- 
either  for  college  or  for  work.  College  was  deferred  for  a 
few  months,  so  he  applied  for  a  school,  and  received  one  in 
Guilford  Centre.  He  tried,  and  failed.  He  failed  as  com- 
pletely as  Phillips  Brooks  failed.  Tired,  nervous,  home- 
sick, he  learned  thus  early  what  failure  is.  Because  he 
knew,  he  was  very  tender  with  others'  failure  all  his  life. 
But  the  experience  was  galling.  The  tears  almost  came. 
The  little  school  of  thirty  was  turbulent,  and  because  he 
could  not  calm  it,  all  but  three  of  the  pupils  departed. 
He  heard  hammering  on  the  door  one  morning  and  knew 
that  the  dissatisfied  school-board  was  nailing  up  a  warrant 
for  a  school-meeting.  His  heart  sank,  but  he  kept  on.  He 
was  boarded  about  with  different  parents,  and  the  mission- 
ary spirit  was  strong  in  him.  To  one  hard-hearted  man 
he  gave  a  Prayer  Book;  with  another  he  entered  into  an 
argument  on  religion.  "I  do  not  like  what  he  says,"  the 
boy  wrote  in  his  diary.  "And  then  he  is  even  blasphemous 
and  I  think  awfully  wicked.  Now  I  wish  I  never  had 
broached  religion  here  at  all."  It  is  the  union  of  shyness 
and  courage  which  characterized  him  to  the  end.  He  went 
home  for  the  Sundays,  and,  when  he  reported  his  school 
reduced  to  three,  his  father  smiled  grimly,  murmuring, 
"You  have  made  a  solitude  and  call  it  peace."  He  began 
his  teaching  December  6,  1858,  and  with  a  grateful  heart 
he  locked  the  school-house  door  for  the  last  time,  February 
26,  1859. 

Days  of  depression  followed  at  intervals  during  the 
spring.  He  passed  his  eighteenth  birthday  with  the  self- 
accusation  that  much  of  his  life  so  far  had  gone  to  waste. 
There  was  a  certain  artificial  quality  which  had  crept  into 
his  character,  clearly  marked  by  his  fine-spun  and  elaborate 
handwriting  during  these  Guilford  years.  The  debates 
in  which  he  made  speeches  an  hour  in  length  had  probably 
given  him  too  great  facility  in  words.     But  there  is  real 


12  A  NEW  ENGLAND  RECTORY 

vigour  and  purpose  behind  the  elaborate  covering.  He  was 
striving  towards  an  ideal.  He  accused  himself  of  wandering 
thoughts  "even  during  prayer,"  and  so  showed  himself 
struggling  for  an  ideal  to  which  the  saints  most  often 
aspire  with  failure.  And  the  call  to  the  ministry  was  more 
and  more  insist  nt. 

August  30,  1859,  tne  two  sons  nad  a  sorrowful  time, 
when  at  family  prayers  they  sang,  "A  charge  to  keep  I 
have";  said  good-bye  to  mother,  father,  sister;  and  went 
away  to  college:  Henry  to  Hobart,  Alexander  to  Kenyon, 
both  to  study  for  the  ministry.  Both  had  scholarships; 
both  knew  what  the  sacrifices  of  the  ministry  might  be. 
The  mother  and  the  father  knew  better  than  they  the 
hardships  and  the  trials;  but  they  willingly  gave  their 
sons  to  the  task,  without  count  of  cost. 

From  that  day  forth  the  three  heroes  —  what  else  were 
they?  —  in  the  rectory  at  Guilford  lived  for  the  letters 
which  came  week  by  week  from  Henry  and  Alexander. 
They  saved  at  every  corner  of  their  frugal  life  that  they 
might  help  the  sons  with  such  money  as  they  could  send. 
And  the  loneliness  of  Guilford  was  almost  unbearable. 

The  next  morning  Albert  Houghton  said,  "Mr.  Allen, 
you  must  miss  the  boys."  The  old  man  turned  his  face 
away,  and  it  was  long  before  he  spoke. 


CHAPTER  n 

A  WESTERN   COLLEGE 

1859-  1862 

I.  THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  KENYON 

ALEXANDER  ALLEN  went  to  college,  at  eighteen, 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Crusaders.  To  receive  the  aid 
necessary  to  enable  him  to  take  a  college  course,  he  was 
obliged  to  tell  why  he  thought  he  ought  to  study  for  the 
ministry.  His  reserve  was  so  radical  that  he  did  not  show 
his  answer  even  to  his  father.  "I  should  not  be  willing," 
he  wrote,  "thus  to  throw  myself  on  others,  were  it  not  for 
the  thought  that  in  return  I  give  up  my  life  to  God,  to  labour 
solely  for  His  glory  and  the  good  of  men.  So  far  as  I  know 
I  have  no  other  motive  than  the  salvation  of  souls  and  the 
upbuilding  of  Christ's  Kingdom.  No  thoughts  of  worldly 
ease  or  distinction  influence  me.  Nor  does  the  thought  of 
an  education  to  be  obtained  with  a  dim  thought  of  the 
ministry  as  my  future  profession  induce  me  to  offer  myself. 
I  desire  an  education  only  as  a  means  of  fitting  me  for  more 
usefulness  in  God's  service.  It  has  always  been  my  in- 
tention from  the  earliest  period  of  my  life  to  enter  the 
ministry.  I  studied  for  it  what  I  thought  would  be  of  use 
to  me  in  my  calling.  All  this  time  I  knew  that  I  was  unfit, 
but  I  thought  that  sometime  God  would  convert  me  and 
prepare  me.  I  have  now  been  led  to  make  a  surrender  of 
myself  to  my  Maker,  body  and  soul."  There  is  more  to 
the  letter,  deeply  religious,  expressed  in  the  language  of  the 
day:  it  is  too  sacred  to  quote.  It  is  not  strange  that  the 
President  told  him  at  once  to  come. 

13 


i4  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

The  new  student  described  the  journey  to  college  to 
his  father.  "You  know,"  he  wrote,  "what  time  we  left 
Brattleboro  in  the  morning.  I  did  not  look  much  out  of 
the  windows  after  that,  for  my  mind  was  occupied  with 
other  things,  and  it  hurt  my  eyes.  When  we  got  to  North- 
ampton I  was  wide  awake  to  see  the  Edwards  Church,  and 
I  did  —  the  largest  I  ever  have  seen.  This,  you  know, 
was  where  Jonathan  Edwards  lived  and  where  Whitefield 
preached."  Henry  left  him  at  midnight  at  Syracuse.  "I 
slept  some  on  the  cars,"  he  went  on,  "yet  I  was  awake 
whenever  they  stopped  and  saw  all  that  could  be  seen.  .  .  . 
It  was  beautiful  riding  along  the  lake  in  the  cool  grey  of  the 
morning:  I  had  no  idea  the  lake  was  so  large;  I  should  not 
have  known  but  that  it  was  the  ocean.  It  was  noon  when 
the  cars  stopped  at  Cleveland.  Here  I  immediately  took 
the  train  to  Shelby,  where  I  was  obliged  to  stay  from  3  p.m. 
to  9  a.m.  —  the  hardest  time  I  ever  had  and  the  longest. 
I  had  a  small,  dirty  room  in  the  tavern  given  me.  While 
in  the  bar-room  I  fell  asleep  in  my  chair  and  woke  very 
much  surprised  not  to  see  Henry,  and  began  to  look  about 
for  him  strangely.  It  must  have  made  those  in  the  room 
laugh.  At  9  a.m.  the  cars  came  and  we  arrived  at  Mt. 
Vernon  about  noon.  The  hack  was  all  ready  for  Gambier. 
Dr.  Smith  was  there  and  rode  back  with  us.  I  told  him  I 
was  coming  to  Kenyon,  but  my  letters  were  so  safely  pinned 
up  from  mother's  robbers  that  I  couldn't  get  at  them." 

He  was  placed  at  first  in  a  small  cottage  in  the  Park. 
"I  don't  know  but  I  ought  to  be  contented,  but  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  not  be.  The  cottage  is  given  up  to  the 
students  and  all  board  themselves.  We  are  all  alike  in 
being  poor,  but  things  are  very  different  from  what  I  am 
accustomed  to.  .  .  .  The  students  are  all  very  pleasant. 
I  have  been  introduced  to  some  of  the  theological  students. 
They  look  pretty  wise." 

His  father's  answer  was  characteristic.  "Think,"  he 
urged,  "of  those  who  have  laboured  and  suffered  with  an 


COLLEGE  ADVANCEMENT  15 

infinitely  higher  end  in  view  —  think  of  Martyn,  Lyman, 
Weightbrecht  —  open  to  the  page  where  he  boarded 
himself  in  the  wilderness  with  naught  but  the  open  skies 
for  his  shelter.  .  .   .  Try  to  be  patient." 

Before  this  letter  reached  the  student,  he  had  secured  a 
better  room.  "Had  I  received  the  letter  in  time,"  the  boy 
confessed,  "I  should  not  have  made  the  change."  By  the 
middle  of  September  he  was  promoted  to  the  sophomore 
class,  in  which  he  quickly  became  the  first  scholar.  The 
religious  life  impressed  him  from  the  first.  He  was  moved 
by  Bishop  Bedell's  sermons,  and  liked  to  go  to  chapel  at 
seven  each  morning  and  at  five  each  night,  besides  the 
long  Sunday  services.  From  the  first,  too,  he  spent  much 
time  in  the  college  library:  "I  love  to  be  among  books," 
he  wrote.  The  weather,  if  dark  or  wet,  depressed  him: 
homesickness  would  then  attack  him.  In  the  Christmas 
holidays  he  fought  off  a  savage  attack  of  homesickness  by 
plunging  into  the  study  of  Hebrew.  But  he  was  gay 
through  all;  sought  out  because  he  could  laugh  and  make 
others  laugh. 

His  mother  wrote  her  satisfaction  in  his  religious  sur- 
roundings. "It  pleases  me  much,"  she  said,  "that  you 
find  yourself  among  Episcopalians  of  mother's  stamp  — 
those  who  stand  up  for  Jesus,  as  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of 
all  their  hopes,  for  time  and  eternity,  and  do  not  lean  upon 
the  Church,  or  any  of  its  ordinances,  for  salvation.  I  am 
glad  to  see  your  childlike  confidence  in  asking  advice  of 
your  father,  and  telling  him  your  troubles." 

At  the  end  of  the  diary  for  1859  he  printed  in  great  letters 
—  "600,000,000  are  perishing!!!  calvary."  The 
missionary  motive  was  stirring  him.  When  Bishop  Payne, 
of  Africa,  made  an  appeal  in  the  chapel,  Allen  asked 
whether  he  ought  not  to  offer  himself.  He  approved  the 
strict  Evangelical  views  at  Gambier.  "But  I  like,"  he 
wrote,  "to  see  more  reverence  for  the  Church  in  itself, 
on  account  of  its  distinctive  principles  and  its  antiquity." 


16  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

His  diaries  and  letters  are  direct,  but  his  journals,  in  which 
he  quoted  from  books  that  he  was  reading  and  put  down 
his  own  thoughts,  are  at  times  painfully  fine  —  as  when, 
for  example,  he  calls  the  sonnet  of  "a  pastor's  wife  in  one 
of  our  mountain  parishes,  a  genuine  drop  of  Parnassian 
dew." 

One  night  he  attended  a  prayer-meeting  conducted  by 
Bishop  Mcllvaine  which  made  him  fear  that  he  was  not  a 
Christian.  Indeed,  the  abundant  religious  expression  at 
Kenyon  did  not  seem  to  be  cheering.  Besides  this,  there 
was  lack  of  sympathy  and  tact  in  the  attitude  of  the 
faculty  towards  the  students;  once  during  this  year  the 
sophomore  class,  in  loyalty  to  a  fellow  student,  refused  to 
sign  a  certain  paper  drawn  up  by  the  faculty,  were  ex- 
pelled —  and  then  immediately  reinstated.  Allen,  having 
a  name  inconveniently  high  in  the  alphabet,  had  to  be  the 
first  to  protest.  "At  three  o'clock  the  bell  rang,"  he  re- 
corded, "and  we  went  to  the  recitation  room.  Mr.  Presi- 
dent handed  me  the  pen  to  sign  the  pledge.  I  refused. 
He  told  me  to  leave  the  room  and  that  I  was  dismissed 
from  the  college.  Then  the  whole  class  followed  me." 
He  was  summoned  before  the  Bishop  and  the  President; 
but  he  held  his  ground.  What  chiefly  vexed  his  soul  was 
that  the  President  wrote  to  his  father,  and  his  father 
wrote  that  gloom  had  settled  down  over  their  house  owing 
to  their  son's  disgrace,  and  they  never  expected  to  be 
happy  again.  However,  he  felt  sure  that  he  could  win  his 
father  to  the  justice  of  the  position  of  the  class,  towards 
which  he  "had  used  all  his  influence." 

But  the  really  hard  event  of  the  year  was  the  death  of 
a  classmate,  Edward  Bates.  There  had  arisen  a  warm 
friendship  among  four  men,  Allen,  Bates,  Postlethwaite, 
and  Doty.  "It  is  the  first  time  I  have  known  death,"  his 
friend  wrote.  Speaking  ruefully  of  one  of  Bates's  relatives, 
he  said:  "He  is  not  a  Christian,  but  otherwise  is  one  of  the 
finest  of  men.    He  is  a  believer  in  the  truth  of  Christianity, 


LUTHER  i 7 

but  that  is  all.  He  does  not  feel  its  power  in  his  heart. 
We  have  prayed  that  this  affliction  might  bring  him  to  the 
foot  of  the  Saviour's  cross  and  keep  him  there." 

All  in  all,  the  year  had  been  profitable.  Professor 
Francis  Wharton,  then  a  layman,  came  home  from  Europe, 
and  drew  Allen  to  him  at  once.  It  was  through  Mr. 
Wharton's  lectures  that  he  was  introduced  to  Luther.  He 
noted  the  day  when  he  started  to  read  Luther's  life.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  life-long  enthusiasm.  Another  en- 
thusiasm this  year  was  his  initiation  into  the  Fraternity 
of  AA$  —  a  loyalty  that  never  left  him. 

July  found  him  at  home  again;  Henry  had  also  returned; 
and  there  was  great  joy  in  the  Guilford  rectory.  There 
were  pleasant  walks  over  the  familiar  "Brook  Road";  he 
played  the  organ  and  led  the  singing,  as  of  old;  and  night 
after  night  he  and  Henry  told  of  Kenyon  and  Hobart. 
He  had  made  eternal  friendships,  he  began  to  have  visions 
of  the  scholar's  life,  he  had  faced  difficult  situations  with 
independence  and  decision,  he  had  met  death  at  close 
range.  This  first  year  in  a  little  Western  college  had 
brought  him  a  long  distance  towards  the  manhood  that 
was  to  be. 

II.    THE  JUNIOR  YEAR 

On  September  4,  i860,  Alexander  wrote  in  his  diary: 
"This  morning  I  rose  very  early  —  the  morning  of  my 
leaving  home.  It  was  a  sad  time.  Father  made  the  last 
prayer,  praying  for  me.  We  ate  the  last  breakfast,  and 
then  we  went  to  Brattleboro  to  take  the  cars.  Then  came 
the  good-byes:  the  last  grasp  of  a  dear  father's  hand,  the 
last  sister's,  the  last  mother's  kiss,  and  then  I  go.  Swiftly 
the  cars  ride  on,  tearing  my  heart  from  all  I  love."  A  few 
days  later,  even  with  the  joy  of  meeting  "Posy"  and  the 
rest,  the  homesickness  was  intense:  "It  does  not  seem  as 
though  I  could  bear  up  under  it,"  he  wrote.  His  loves 
were  very  deep. 
3 


18  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

A  new  friendship  was  begun  this  fall,  one  that  was  to 
strengthen  with  the  years.  William  Taylor,  entering  col- 
lege very  young,  recognized  at  once  in  Allen  a  friend  and 
protector.  In  November  Allen  wrote:  "Little  Willie  is 
sick.  I  have  just  come  down  from  his  room,  where  he  is 
lying  in  bed.  He  has  a  sore  throat  and  quite  a  high  fever. 
Dear  little  boy,  I  have  an  unbounded  love  for  him.  I  do 
not  always  show  it,  but  it  seems  sometimes  as  though  he 
were  almost  the  joy  of  my  lite.  He  is  my  brother  in  the 
bonds  of  AA3>.  His  daily  visits  to  my  room  give  me  the 
deepest  pleasure.  A  thrill  of  joy  comes  over  me  whenever 
I  meet  him,  and  he  tells  me  too  that  he  loves  me.  Although 
often  compelled  to  feel  that  the  friendships  of  the  world  are 
of  little  worth,  yet  whenever  I  think  of  little  Willie,  I  feel 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  strong  earthly  love,  even 
among  us,  who  are  the  cold,  studious,  calculating  men  of 
the  world."  His  friendship  with  Percy  Browne  also  began 
this  year.     They  took  long  walks  together. 

The  year  shows  a  growing  introspection.  After  a  meet- 
ing of  his  literary  society  he  recorded  that  he  spoke  several 
times  as  critic.  "My  fault,"  he  added,  "is  that  I  do  not 
praise  enough."  When  he  was  teaching  at  Guilford  Centre 
he  had  felt  a  distaste  for  the  prayer-meetings  held  in  his 
school-house.  But  this  year  he  notes  repeatedly  his  de- 
light in  the  college  prayer-meetings.  February  12,  1861, 
he  wrote:  "I  enjoyed  the  prayer-meeting  this  evening 
very  much.  I  was  called  upon  to  pray,  and  felt  unusual 
freedom  in  addressing  the  Throne  of  Grace.  Professor 
Wharton  talked  with  me  after  the  meeting,  and  told  me  I 
was  the  best  logician  he  had  ever  known  in  college,  undoubt- 
edly flattery.  He  made  me  a  present  of  Chambers's  Mis- 
cellany. I  felt  somewhat  elated.  But  may  I  be  kept 
from  all  pride." 

Speaking  thirty  years  later  of  the  religious  life  at  Ken- 
yon,  he  said:  "Religion  was  never  thrust  upon  us.  One 
of  the  things  which  struck  me  most  on  entering  college  was 


RELIGIOUS  LIFE  AT  KENYON  19 

that  it  was  officered  exclusively  by  laymen.  No  clergy- 
man came  into  any  official  relationship  with  us.  The 
faculty  in  their  capacity  as  laymen  conducted  prayers  in 
the  chapel,  and  Professor  Wharton  gave  us  most  edifying 
sermons  as  a  lay-preacher.  There  were  those  among  the 
students  who  exerted  a  stronger  religious  influence  than 
any  chaplain  could  have  exerted.  The  religious  life  of 
these  men  was  sedulously  cultivated  among  themselves. 
Class  prayer-meetings,  let  those  sneer  at  them  who  will, 
kept  alive  the  soul  of  spiritual  devotedness.  We  had  no 
beautiful  chapel  in  those  days,  nor  did  we  worship  to  the 
sound  of  the  organ.  In  the  basement  of  Rosse  Hall,  cold 
and  unsightly  and  dark,  we  gathered  for  morning  and 
evening  prayers.  Religion  had  a  certain  healthy  and 
manly  character  which  commanded  our  respect." 

The  next  spring  Postlethwaite  applied  for  the  chance 
to  be  his  room-mate.  "My  acquaintance  with  Posy," 
Allen  wrote,  "has  deepened  during  the  term  to  a  greater 
intimacy  than  ever  before.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that 
I  am  different  from  most  of  the  men  here,  in  that  I 
long  for  those  who  love  me.  I  cannot  be  satisfied  with 
simply  being  on  good  terms,  and  considered  an  ordinary 
friend.  It  is  womanly,  perhaps,  although  I  think  Christ 
had  a  longing,  a  yearning  for  this  human  love.  He  loved 
John;  He  loved  the  family  at  Bethany." 

About  this  time,  in  his  self-scrutiny,  he  felt  that  pride 
was  becoming  an  essential  element  in  his  character.  "  When 
once  I  was  talking  with  Rockwell,"  he  wrote  in  his  journal, 
"he  told  me  he  thought  I  appeared  egotistical,  that  I  laid 
down  my  word  as  the  truth.  It  has  been  several  times 
noticed,  for  it  has  been  suggested  by  several  others.  Have 
I  come  to  such  a  pass  as  to  be  conceited?  O  that  God  may 
not  let  the  foot  of  pride  come  nigh  to  hurt  me!  Certainly 
I  have  nothing  to  boast  of.  Let  me  at  once  destroy  this 
idol  which  threatens  to  destroy  me."  These  old  journals 
are  a  sort  of  confessional. 


2o  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

By  the  first  of  January  his  "monetary  horizon,"  he  said, 
was  lowering;  indeed,  so  lowering  that  he  decided  that  he 
must  board  himself  again.  This  he  did  for  eight  weeks. 
"I  have  begun  boarding  myself  this  term,"  he  wrote  to  his 
father,  "in  order  to  save  a  little  money.  It  goes  rather 
hard.  But  then  the  expense  is  very  little.  It  will  not 
cost  me  forty  cents  this  week.  Boarding  myself  at  a  dollar 
a  week  is  very  comfortable.  Bread  at  present  is  my  only 
article  of  food.  A  five-cent  loaf  lasts  the  whole  day. 
Next  week  I  am  going  into  partnership  with  another 
fellow,  and  we  shall  get  along  much  more  pleasantly." 
Strangely  enough^  he  spent  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of 
this  letter  in  the  Seminary  Library,  examining  books  on 
fasting,  to  satisfy  some  queries  of  Mrs.  Bates.  Luckily  dur- 
ing these  two  months  he  was  invited  to  Bishop  Bedell's 
and  the  President's.  "The  suppers  at  both  places,"  he 
wrote,  "were  unusually  good,  and  were  certainly  appre- 
ciated by  a  student  boarding  himself.  I  can't  say,  how- 
ever, that  I  did  my  eating  powers  justice,  for  bashfulness 
interposed,  or  sense  of  propriety.  Amidst  these  con- 
flicting claims  I  was  tossed  about."  It  is  not  surprising 
that  he  felt  that  a  small  country  college  was  not  best  for  a 
poor  boy.  The  President  promised  him  tutoring  for  the 
next  year,  but  it  seemed  impossible  to  get  work. 

Then  came  the  War.  April  19,  1861,  he  wrote:  "I  have 
come  to  my  room  to-night  excited  intensely  and  unfit  for 
everything.  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  me  to  remain  in  college,  and,  if  it  is  possible, 
it  is  useless.  I  don't  feel  like  study  at  all.  Perhaps  I 
might  as  well  tell  what  I  think  of  doing  and  what  I  have 
done.  I  have  about  the  same  as  enlisted  for  the  War  in 
the  Ohio  Home  Guard.  There  is  some  fear  that  the  borders 
will  be  attacked.  In  that  case,  I  suppose,  I  shall  go  at  the 
call  of  the  Governor.  We  begin  drilling  next  week.  It 
may  be  this  plan  will  be  overthrown.  In  fact  I  think  the 
best  thing  that  can  be  done  would  be  for  me  to  volunteer 


THE  WAR  21 

for  regular  service  immediately.  We  are  trying  to  get 
enough  students  to  do  this;  that  is,  enough  to  form  a  part 
of  a  company.  Our  President  has  tendered  his  service, 
has  been  accepted,  and  has  left  the  college  for  the  War. 
This  has  increased  the  excitement  here  greatly."  While  he 
was  waiting  for  word  from  home,  the  faculty  decided  that 
the  college  should  go  on,  if  only  twelve  students  remained. 
Moreover,  they  induced  many  who  had  signed,  to  withdraw 
their  names.  By  April  26,  of  the  one  hundred  and  forty 
students,  only  ninety  remained.  The  committee  which 
bestowed  the  scholarships  was  so  heavily  in  debt  that  it 
was  thought  that  beneficiaries  would  be  forced  to  leave 
college  for  self-support.  Meantime,  he  was  drilling  with 
the  rest,  and  very  little  was  he  able  to  study.  The  drilling 
gave  him  extreme  delight.  One  interesting  detail  is  that 
the  letters  of  war  excitement  are  in  the  most  direct  and 
plain  handwriting,  quite  like  that  of  his  mature  manhood. 
After  the  excitement  was  over,  the  kinks  and  twirls  returned. 
It  shows  the  reality  which  the  War  brought  to  the  youth 
of  the  country. 

The  family  at  Guilford  were  poor,  but  they  were  not 
shirking  their  patriotic  duty.  Mrs.  Allen  was  collecting 
money  to  send  books  (alas!  tracts)  to  the  soldiers,  and 
she  was  knitting  and  sewing  for  them.  She  and  her  son 
exchanged  sympathetic  letters  over  the  iniquity  of  Bishop 
Hopkins's  approval  of  slavery,  and  his  daring  to  vindicate 
it  from  the  Bible. 

The  year,  in  spite  of  all  distractions,  both  of  poverty 
and  of  war,  was  intellectually  profitable.  He  was  reading 
De  Quincey  and  Carlyle  and  Macaulay;  he  was  beginning  to 
study  German,  and  was  impressed  with  its  importance. 
He  always  remembered  with  gratitude  Herr  Messner  and 
Herr  Grauert.  He  was  making  pleasant  field  excursions 
with  the  professor  of  geology.  He  wrote  and  delivered 
his  first  "oration"  in  Rosse  Chapel  before  the  whole  college, 
and  the  President  criticized  him  for  the  way  he  stood.     He 


22  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

was  a  congenial  friend,  and  students  resorted  to  his  room 
"to  talk  things  over,"  to  make  coffee,  and  to  sit  up  very 
late.  "My  life  in  college,"  he  wrote  with  remorse,  "is 
not  a  holy  one." 

After  much  discussion  of  ways  and  means,  he  returned 
to  Guilford  for  the  summer.  He  was  shocked  to  find  the 
congregation  listless,  in  spite  of  his  father's  goodness  and 
ability.  The  congregation  missed  the  two  sons  of  the 
rector,  who  were  as  curates  to  him,  and  recognized  that 
the  rector  himself  was  sixty-seven.  They  ceased  to  pay 
his  salary,  though  they  bore  down  upon  him  for  sympathy 
and  help  in  all  their  troubles.  And  he  meekly  submitted, 
calling  it  "God's  will." 

During  the  summer  Alexander  spent  much  time  study- 
ing the  newspapers  for  tidings  of  the  War.  He  read  to  his 
mother.  He  played  the  organ.  He  read  the  sermons  of 
Archer  Butler  and  Frederick  Robertson,  and  was  moved 
especially  by  Robertson.  He  agreed  to  room  with  Postle- 
thwaite  for  the  senior  year,  but  feared  they  might  not 
agree.  He  wrote  letters  and  took  the  old  walks;  but  the 
feeling  that  his  father  must  move  from  Guilford  was  a  long 
shadow  across  his  path.  And  it  was  hard  not  to  feel  the 
root  of  bitterness  springing  up.  It  was,  therefore,  with 
unusual  loneliness  that  he  left  home  for  his  last  year  at 
college. 

III.    THE  SENIOR  YEAR 

As  Allen  returned  to  college  the  money  question  again 
became  pressing.  "To-day,"  he  wrote  on  September  16, 
1 86 1,  "a  way  opened  to  me  to  make  a  little  money,  through 
Professor  Wharton,  probably  between  six  and  eight  dollars. 
It  is  by  writing  articles  for  The  Episcopal  Record.  I  am  to 
write  three  or  four  this  term  as  I  may  find  time.  Each 
article  is  to  be  about  three  columns  of  the  paper.  My 
subject  is  to  be  'The  Indelibility  of  all  and  every  Impres- 
sion made  on  the  Mind:'    I  am  to  show  the  connection  be- 


COLLEGE  WRITING  23 

tween  this  psychological  fact  and  the  retributive  justice  of 
God.  He  wants  me  to  criticize  particularly  Haven's 
Philosophy;  Haven  is  erroneous  on  the  subject,  the  pro- 
fessor thinks.  I  am  to  study  up  to  support  the  view  of 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  and  also  another  work  that  has 
recently  appeared,  entitled,  Obscure  Diseases  of  the  Mind  and 
Brain.  The  author  is  Forbes  Winslow,  who  is  at  the  head 
of  his  profession  in  England,  as  superintendent  of  Lunatic 
Asylums.  I  doubt  my  ability  to  do  anything  on  the 
subject,  but  told  the  professor  I  would  try,  as  I  want  the 
money.  ...  I  have  been  electioneering  for  AA$  and 
we  have  succeeded  splendidly.  .  .  .  The  late  sup- 
pers which  we  always  have  at  the  opening  of  the  year 
have  come  and  gone,  bringing  expense  and  ill  health  in 
their  train." 

With  the  routine  work  of  this  year  went  a  great  deal  of 
voluntary  writing  for  college  societies  and  special  occasions. 
On  Washington's  Birthday  he  spoke  of  "America's  Posi- 
tion in  the  Philosophy  of  History."  "It  was  a  nervous 
moment,"  he  told  his  mother.  "The  chapel  was  crowded 
—  over  a  thousand  people.  I  was  much  cooler  than  I 
expected  to  be,  and  when  my  name  was  announced,  I  was 
ready  for  the  sacrifice.  My  speech  lasted  about  thirty-five 
minutes.  I  presume  the  clergy  and  professors  thought  it 
rather  fanciful  and  arbitrary.  The  Bishop  told  me  after- 
wards that  he  did  not  quite  agree  with  me.  But  I  was 
convinced  myself  that  it  was  the  right  and  only  view,  though 
Professor  Trimble  said  that  he  held  a  directly  contrary 
opinion.  You  will  see  that  I  still  disagree  with  my 
teachers."  All  this  is  suggestive  of  what  was  to  come  — 
the  interest  in  the  meaning  of  facts,  and  the  independent 
striking  out  for  himself.  "I  am  getting  radical,  I  suppose 
father  will  think,"  he  wrote;  "for  unconsciously  I  am 
coming  to  agree  with  the  views  of  German  writers  on  many 
subjects.  This  Philosophy  or  Science  of  History  is  con- 
sidered rather  a  radical  subject  by  such  philosophers  as 


24  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

Sir  William  Hamilton."  This  letter  also  records  that  he 
was  playing  the  chapel  organ.  Accused  of  throwing  in 
"fancy  touches,"  he  replied  that  every  organist  had  his 
style:  this  was  his  style. 

The  excitement  of  the  year  culminated  in  a  student  re- 
bellion in  the  spring  of  1862.  The  German  professor  had 
allowed  his  printed  examination  paper  to  escape  him.  For 
a  lark,  the  whole  senior  class  met,  decided  to  present  a 
uniform  set  of  papers,  prepared  the  night  before,  all  of 
them  exactly  alike  in  their  correctness.  At  the  end  of  two 
days  the  whole  affair  was  to  be  confessed.  Herr  Grauert, 
amazed,  dreamed  of  another  Septuagint  prepared  by 
scholars  working  in  separate  cells.  Then  it  occurred  to 
him  that  it  might  not  be  a  miracle.  The  faculty  was 
aroused.     The  class  was  expelled. 

Meantime  the  Rector  of  Guilford  was  informed  that  his 
son  was  rebellious  against  the  authorities.  The  son  re- 
ceived a  long  letter  from  his  father,  recalling  all  the  training 
of  his  childhood,  his  baptismal  vows,  his  confirmation,  his 
duty  towards  his  neighbour,  which  included  "To  submit 
myself  to  all  my  governors,  teachers,  spiritual  pastors  and 
masters:  To  order  myself  lowly  and  reverently  to  all  my 
betters."  "Do  you  know  such  a  young  man?"  the  letter 
concluded.  The  letter  had  its  effect;  but  there  was  still  a 
protest  from  the  son:  "I  am,"  he  said,  "completely  sick 
of  the  place;  I  mean  I  hold  in  contempt  most  of  the  faculty. 
If  I  submit  this  time  when  I  know  I  am  right  and  have 
done  nothing  wrong,  it  will  be  the  complete  killing  of  every 
particle  of  manliness  or  independence  in  me.  With  no 
self-respect,  I  shall  command  the  respect  of  no  fellow 
student."  The  only  thing  that  troubled  him  was  that  he 
feared  the  Guilford  parish  might  be  in  such  straits  that 
his  father  might  be  contemplating  removing  from  it:  if  so, 
it  was  pain  to  him  to  think  that  he  might  be  adding  to  his 
father's  troubles,  which  would  be  great  enough  already. 
But  even  this  could  not  keep  him  from  the  martyr  spirit, 


A  COLLEGE  REBELLION  25 

which  had  been  excited  to  a  fine  frenzy  by  the  class-meet- 
ings. It  was  Luther's  "Ich  kann  nicht  anders."  How- 
ever, public  opinion  among  the  trustees  and  others  did  not 
sustain  the  faculty  in  their  lack  of  humour,  and  the  faculty 
put  the  conditions  of  return  so  low  that  the  black  sheep 
returned  to  the  fold. 

As  the  spring  wore  to  summer,  Allen,  now  just  past 
twenty-one,  was  evidently  coming  into  favour  with  the 
authorities  in  spite  of  his  independence.  Bishop  Bedell 
offered  him  the  editorship  of  his  diocesan  paper  if  he  would 
stay  through  the  summer  vacation.  This  editorship  was 
to  continue  after  he  entered  Bexley  Hall,  for  the  Bishop 
assumed  that  he  would  remain  in  Gambier  for  his  theologi- 
cal course.  The  salary  for  editing  The  Western  Episco- 
palian —  for  that  was  the  name  of  the  paper  —  was  one 
dollar  a  week!  He  at  once  appealed  to  his  father  for 
advice:  "The  object  of  the  paper,"  he  wrote,  "is  to  reflect 
Bishop  Mcllvaine  and  Bishop  Bedell.  I  am  to  be  more  or 
less  of  a  machine  to  work  at  their  pleasure  and  will,  and 
this  is  what  of  all  things  I  can  least  endure.  My  views  do 
not  quite  agree  with  those  of  Bishop  Bedell.  I  am  quite 
sure  there  would  be  collision.  I  do  not  like  Ohio  Church- 
manship."  He  did  not  wish  to  be  tied  down  to  the  Ohio 
Seminary.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  something  to  have 
all  the  periodicals  and  books  which  were  sent  to  the  paper, 
and  he  enjoyed  reviewing  them.  His  father  replied  with 
characteristic  fire:  "Would  it  be  honest  to  take  the  paper, 
if  your  views  conflict  with  those  of  the  Bishops?  Have 
you  the  stock  of  general  information  requisite?  You 
have  had  sufficient  experience  to  know  your  own  great 
propensity  to  be  in  an  everlasting  skedaddle  with  somebody 
or  about  something;  and  the  more  your  relations  are 
enlarged  or  widened,  the  greater  would  be  the  occasion  for 
the  exercise  of  this  propensity  —  which,  to  say  the  least, 
is  not  desirable."  In  spite  of  this  letter  the  editorship  was 
accepted. 


26  A  WESTERN  COLLEGE 

Allen  was  valedictorian  and  described  the  triumph  of 
Commencement  to  his  mother:  "There  was  an  immense 
crowd  here,"  he  wrote,  "among  others  Dr.  Tyng,  Bishop 
Clark,  all  the  clergy  of  the  diocese,  together  with  distin- 
guished strangers  from  every  part  of  the  state.  I  did  not 
begin  my  oration  till  a  few  days  before,  and  it  was  not  com- 
pleted that  morning.  I  had  been  up  till  two  o'clock  for 
three  nights  in  succession,  and  I  woke  up  several  times  this 
morning  trying  to  repeat  what  I  had  written.  I  was  worn 
out  and  had  been  unable  to  eat  anything  for  two  days.  I 
determined  to  worry  myself  no  more  and  to  speak  ex 
tempore.  As  I  looked  upon  the  sea  of  faces  I  became  sud- 
denly calm  and  a  cold  breeze  seemed  to  pass  over  my 
forehead.  How  I  got  through  I  don't  know.  What  I 
said,  I  can't  remember.  But  if  it  is  any  pleasure  for  you 
to  know,  I  can  say,  I  suppose,  that  the  address  was 
well  received  and  was  considered  the  finest  valedictory 
delivered  here  for  years.  It  was  entitled,  'The  Relations 
of  Philosophy  to  Religion.'" 

The  excitement  of  the  Commencement  over,  his  friends 
gone,  he  was  lonely  and  despondent.  With  all  the  stir  of 
this  busy  year,  he  had  not  wholly  lost  his  moods  of  intro- 
spective depression.  "Everything  has  gone  wrong  spirit- 
ually," he  wrote  one  Sunday  evening,  "for  the  reason  that 
all  my  temporal  matters  have  been  neglected ;  the  cleaning  of 
my  room,  bringing  up  wood,  and  other  preparations  for 
Sunday  were  all  put  off  until  the  morning  of  the  holy  day: 
religion  extends  even  to  little  things.  My  religion  ought 
to  permeate  my  whole  common  life." 

He  was  grateful  in  after  life  for  what  he  had  received  at 
Kenyon  College.  He  recalled  the  friendships  begun  there, 
some  of  them  lasting  till  death.  He  often  spoke  of  Trimble 
who  taught  Latin  and  Greek,  and  Hamilton  Smith  who 
taught  the  natural  sciences.  But  his  chief  debt  was  always 
to  Dr.  Wharton.  "I  gained  from  him,"  he  confessed,  "a 
lasting  interest  in  literature.     He  was  by  constitution  a 


INFLUENCE  OF  KEN  YON  27 

humanist,  with  an  instinctive  perception  of  the  meaning  of 
life,  with  a  deep  sympathy  for  all  human  manifestations. 
He  made  all  he  touched  interesting.  From  him  I  gained 
my  first  conception  of  the  picturesque  aspects  of  history 
and  my  first  conviction  of  its  value  as  a  psychological 
revelation  of  the  soul  of  humanity."  In  general  he  found 
at  Kenyon  "the  conditions  necessary  for  the  development 
of  personality."  It  reminded  him  of  a  little  Italian 
republic  in  the  days  of  the  Renaissance.  No  great  neigh- 
bourhood overshadowed  it.  The  chances  for  fame  seemed 
momentous,  and  the  world  outside  seemed  insignificant. 
He  stored  up  enthusiasm  and  self-confidence,  qualities 
best  developed  in  a  community  that  is  small  and  delight- 
edly aware  of  its  own  importance. 


CHAPTER  III 

BEXLEY   HALL 

1862-1864 

DURING  the  summer  of  1862  —  spent,  on  account  of 
the  diocesan  paper,  in  Gambier  —  Allen  was  joined 
by  his  brother  Henry.  He  wrote  to  Guilford  and  to  Geneva 
of  his  desperate  homesickness:  "Home  is  the  centre  round 
which  all  my  thoughts  radiate,  and  the  only  thing  which  I 
live  for  on  earth.  I  am  completely  alone,  and  all  the 
memories  of  the  past  are  rushing  over  me  continually." 
This  was  too  much  for  Henry,  who  fled  forthwith  to  Gam- 
bier, and  wrote  then  to  his  father,  "Zander  represented 
his  homesickness  in  such  a  touching  light  that  I  came 
immediately,  and  took  him  wholly  by  surprise." 

Together  they  moved  Alexander's  belongings  to  Bexley 
Hall,  the  theological  seminary,  which  was  at  the  other  end 
of  the  long  village  street  from  the  college.  It  was  a  some- 
what gloomy  transition.  "The  college  world,"  he  said 
afterwards,  "seemed  full  of  life  and  rich  in  interest,  it  lay  to 
our  imagination  bathed  in  sunlight,  while,  for  those  who 
entered  the  dark  seminary  at  the  other  end  of  the  village, 
we  felt,  when  in  our  kindliest  mood,  as  the  old  Greeks  may 
have  felt  for  those  who  had  entered  the  world  of  the  dead; 
they  had  left  the  fullness  and  richness  of  life  behind  them, 
they  had  become  objects  of  commiseration." 

The  family  at  home  were  in  dread  lest  the  sons  should  be 
drafted  for  the  War.  Alexander  wrote:  "At  present  it 
does  not  appear  to  be  my  duty  to  volunteer,  but  should  the 
draft  come,  it  could  be  considered  as  no  other  than  a  provi- 
dential dispensation.     Properly  I  ought  to  be  exempt  on 

28 


AN  EDITOR  29 

account  of  my  sight,  and  no  doubt  I  should  be  if  I  chose  to 
apply,  but  I  hardly  feel  willing  to  do  so,  when  so  many  are 
evading  on  false  excuses." 

The  chief  occupation  of  the  summer  was  The  Western 
Episcopalian.  He  wrote  to  Bishop  Bedell  frankly  asking 
that  the  editorial  page  be  turned  over  to  him.  A  retired 
clergyman  had  been  writing  the  editorials;  and  they  were 
so  dull  that  they  practically  killed  the  paper.  "My  own 
reward,"  he  wrote,  "  would  be  amply  sufficient  if  I  could 
feel  that  each  week  the  paper  went  forth  a  living  messenger 
of  the  truth,  and  in  every  house  which  it  entered  was 
considered  an  interesting  and  valuable  visitant."  One 
fancies  that  the  Bishop  was  amused  at  the  confidence  of 
his  youthful  editor,  but  he  yielded,  and  afterwards  confessed 
that  the  paper  was  never  so  good  as  under  Mr.  Allen's 
editorship. 

The  Bishop  became  rather  uneasy  at  times,  because  the 
editor  was  striking  out  for  himself  in  ways  to  which  the 
Diocese  of  Ohio  was  not  accustomed.  "Keep  the  first 
page,"  he  wrote,  "for  articles  of  news  which  exhibit  the 
dealings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Church.  Do  not  allow 
the  page  to  degenerate  into  an  imitation  of  the  mere  news 
columns  of  that  irreligious  Church  paper,  The  Church 
Journal.  ...  I  enclose  an  article  showing  the  progress 
of  the  warfare  of  truth  with  the  Romish  heresy."  These 
were  days  of  war. 

Dr.  Mcllhenny  was  the  one  member  of  the  theological 
faculty  to  whom  Allen  felt  a  genuine  debt.  "He  created  in 
us,"  was  his  testimony,  "a  respect  for  scholarship,  and  for 
the  scholar,  of  whom  he  was  a  pure  and  beautiful  type. 
...  I  always  associate  him  in  my  mind  with  the  sort  of 
man  Erasmus  may  have  been."  Among  the  students  was 
David  H.  Greer,  a  graduate  of  a  Pennsylvania  college, 
full  of  Evangelical  fervour  and  opposed  to  secret  societies. 

These  years  at  Gambier  were  important  for  nothing 
more  than  for  his  private  reading.     He  used  to  say  that 


3o  BEXLEY  HALL 

one  of  the  advantages  of  mediocre  instruction  was  that  it 
drove  a  student  to  read,  to  investigate  for  himself.  The 
great  teacher  often  compelled  too  ardent  an  attachment, 
and  precluded  independent  thought.  Years  later,  when 
speaking  to  Harvard  students  on  reading,  he  recalled  the 
reading  which  he  himself  began  to  do  these  five  years  at 
Gambier.  "  When  I  went  to  college,  at  the  age  of  eighteen," 
he  said,  "I  think  I  had  not  read  a  single  book.  But  there 
must  have  been  some  contagion  in  the  air  which  led  me  to 
begin.  I  cannot  tell  to  this  day  what  perverse  instinct  led 
me  to  read  the  Westminster  Review.  It  was  a  poor  little 
college,  which  none  of  you  ever  heard  of.  Its  library  might 
have  had  some  10,000  volumes,  mostly  donations  of  books 
which  the  donors  did  not  care  to  keep.  It  had  no  endow- 
ment, but  somehow  it  managed  to  subscribe  for  the  reprints 
of  the  great  British  quarterlies.  Those  were  the  only  new 
things  in  the  library.  And  to  these  I  turned,  finding  the 
Edinburgh  and  the  London  Quarterly  uninteresting,  but  the 
Westminster  was  rich  and  inviting.  The  covers  of  these 
reviews  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  it,  the 
Edinburgh  was  a  dark,  sombre  green,1  and  the  Quarterly 
a  dull  grey,  while  the  Westminster  was  a  bright  clean 
yellow.  For  four  years  I  read  the  Westminster  regularly, 
looking  forward  to  the  advent  of  new  numbers,  going 
back  also  and  reading  the  old  bound  volumes.  I  need 
not  say  that  it  was  the  quintessence  of  what  we  call  scepti- 
cism —  the  organ  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  George  Eliot,  and 
others  —  representing  the  old  eighteenth  century  revived, 
with  a  mixture  of  the  latest  German  type,  which  was  then 
the  left  wing  of  the  Hegelian  School  as  represented  by 
Strauss  and  Feuerbach  and  Baur.  But  what  impressed  me 
was  its  honesty  and  thoroughness,  as  well  as  its  great 
ability.  It  seemed  to  go  straight  to  the  root  of  things 
with  all  its  destructiveness;  and  it  was  destructive,  for  it 

1  The  Edinburgh  Review  has  always  been  published  in   the  blue  and 
yellow  dress  of  to-day  —  this  was  an  American  reprint. 


WESTMINSTER  REVIEW  31 

shook  every  conviction  I  had  ever  held.  Its  chief  excel- 
lence was  in  the  department  of  book  notices,  which  took  up 
a  large  proportion  of  space.  No  other  review  did  this,  at 
that  time,  with  anything  like  the  same  carefulness  and 
fidelity,  unless  it  were  for  a  very  few  years  the  North  Brit- 
ish. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  Westminster  critics 
had  always  read  the  books  which  they  had  noticed  — 
which  is  saying  a  good  deal.  The  notices  were  severe  and 
searching,  and  positive  in  their  tone.  The  picture  of  the 
world's  contemporary  literature  was  complete.  No  favour 
was  shown  to  what  we  call  orthodoxy,  but,  with  that 
exception,  it  was  generally  fair.  It  taught  me  what  the 
world  was  thinking.  I  took  up  a  copy  recently,  but  some- 
how it  seemed  to  me  as  if  the  teeth  of  the  old  giant  had 
been  drawn,  and  that  it  lay  powerless  in  its  cave.  The 
old  Westminster  no  longer  inspired  me  with  reverence. 
I  had  outgrown  its  philosophy,  its  principles  of  political 
economy,  and  it  seemed  meagre  and  shallow. 

"While  I  was  reading  the  Westminster  Review,  I  some- 
how stumbled  upon  Coleridge  —  I  think  it  was  in  reading 
John  Stuart  Mill's  essay  upon  him.  I  read  it  with  an 
intense  interest.  What  Mill  was  criticizing  or  condemning 
fascinated  me.  From  that  time  I  took  Coleridge  as  my 
guide,  philosopher,  and  friend.  I  read  everything  about 
him  with  a  passionate  devotion,  and  I  tried  to  read  and 
understand  if  I  could  what  he  had  written.  Probably  I 
understood  very  little,  and  some  may  think,  like  Carlyle, 
for  example,  that  he  did  not  understand  himself.  But  I 
am  not  sure  that  it  is  always  necessary  to  take  in  an 
author's  meaning  completely.  In  youth  we  have  not  the 
necessary  experience.  And  it  is  a  good  thing  to  feel  that 
there  are  unknown  regions  beyond  us,  which  still  await  our 
exploration. 

"  Coleridge  was  to  me  everything  which  a  man  can  be. 
He  was  engaged  in  reconstructing  in  a  higher  way  what  the 
Westminster  was  pulling  down.     He  neutralized  the  seep- 


32  BEXLEY  HALL 

ticism.  He  introduced  me  to  the  world  of  human  life,  as 
I  think  no  other  man  can  do,  to  German  philosophy  and 
literature,  to  English  literature,  and  especially  Shakespeare, 
poetry  and  criticism,  politics  and  statesmanship  in  their 
highest  forms,  the  sacred  mysteries  of  nationality.  His 
own  shipwreck  of  life  was  the  most  wholesome  of  moral 
lessons.  He  also  gave  me  a  respect  for  theology.  What 
especially  delighted  me  at  the  time  was  the  Lake  School  of 
Poetry,  of  which  I  first  learned  through  him  —  Words- 
worth and  Southey  and  Charles  Lamb  and  De  Quincey. 
It  was  all  wonderful  and  exhilarating  and  inspiring,  to  the 
last  degree,  and  creates  the  Romance  of  a  life." 

His  love  for  Coleridge  had  begun  in  the  college,  for  in 
one  of  his  letters  about  clothes  he  asked  his  mother  please  to 
wrap  up  in  them  his  father's  copy  of  The  Friend.  In 
the  college  days  there  had  been  some  flutterings  of  doubt, 
but  they  were  vague  and  not  quite  real.  His  journal 
reveals  this.  But  the  world  to  which  Coleridge  and  the 
Westminster  had  admitted  him  became  somewhat  terri- 
fying in  the  quiet  of  Bexley  Hall.  He  was  beginning  to 
find  a  master  only  second  to  Coleridge  in  Frederick  Denni- 
son  Maurice,  who  was  helping  him  to  become  constructive. 
But  the  process  had  its  pitfalls,  and  at  last,  in  the  spring  of 
1863,  he  unburdened  his  soul  to  his  father.  "As  your 
wish,"  he  wrote,  "  seems  to  be  to  draw  out  as  fully  as 
possible  my  present  condition,  mental,  spiritual,  and  physi- 
cal, I  have  no  objections  to  telling  you  my  exact  status,  as 
far  as  I  myself  can  fathom  it.  I  am  considerably  oppressed 
with  the  blues  to-night,  and  if  I  should  look  at  things  with 
'more  than  distorted  gaze,'  I  trust  you  will  make  due 
allowances. 

"My  views  have  undergone  so  complete  a  change  in 
reference  to  religion  that  it  seems  almost  like  hypocrisy  to 
remain  a  student  for  the  Christian  ministry,  though  to 
myself  they  are  correct  and  in  accordance  with  the  Chris- 
tianity I  profess.     They  are  known  at  present  only  to  one 


RELIGIOUS  DOUBTS  33 

person  in  Gambier  —  Ed.  Stanton  [the  son  of  the  Secretary 
of  War].  Perhaps  I  have  been  the  means  of  leading  astray- 
one  for  whom  the  prayers  of  many  are  offered,  that  he  may 
be  converted.  On  the  subject  of  Christianity  and  religion 
we  coincide,  but  beyond  this  I  have  no  sympathy  with  my 
views  here.  If  it  were  not  for  him,  I  could  not  stay,  for 
some  vent  for  my  opinions  and  sympathy  I  must  have. 
The  distance  between  myself  and  evangelical  Christianity 
seems  widening.  This  fact,  continually  before  me,  makes 
all  the  pursuits  of  the  seminary  disagreeable.  And  I 
cannot  keep  up  the  appearance  much  longer.  It  comes 
particularly  hard  when  I  write  for  the  paper. 

"My  chief  obstacle  in  religious  thought  is  that  in  this 
crisis  in  the  history  of  Christianity  I  have  discarded  the 
Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  and  they  only  appear  to  me, 
as  Maurice  has  expressed  it,  as  'phases,  or  expressions  of 
religious  thought.'  My  old  belief  in  their  infallibility  it 
would  be  impossible,  it  seems  to  me,  ever  to  restore.  This 
question  is  the  key  to  a  thousand  other  religious  diffi- 
culties. The  best  way  of  explaining  my  present  condition 
is  by  saying  that  I  am  thoroughly  imbued  with  German 
Transcendentalism,  Rationalism,  Pantheism.  This  is  the 
popular  expression  of  my  condition.  If  it  is  wrong,  I 
trust  sometime  to  be  restored  to  the  truth. 

"The  reason  why  I  have  not  written  before  is  that  I 
have  not  always  felt  sure  of  sympathy.  If  any  one  needs 
it,  I  certainly  do.  I  am  almost  alone,  and  I  feel  my  loneli- 
ness intensely.  My  opinions  if  known  would  ruin  me  in 
the  Church.  But  I  must  be  honest  to  myself  and  the  con- 
victions of  my  heart.  I  cannot  subscribe  to  doctrines 
which  inwardly  I  contemn.  It  may  be  only  a  phase  of 
intellectual  development  which  I  shall  pass  through  and 
then  return  to  the  old  orthodox  path,  but  I  must  come 
through  it  honestly  if  it  is,  and  not  try  to  banish  the  ghost 
which  will  not  down  at  the  bidding  of  creeds  and  formularies. 
I  know  you  cannot  agree  with  me,  and  any  efforts  to  set 
4 


34  BEXLEY   HALL 

me  right  I  shall  appreciate,  but  what  I  want  most  of  all  is 
sympathy.  I  have  got  to  battle  my  own  way  in  the  world, 
and  expect  to  do  so,  but  in  my  troubles,  or  sorrows,  or 
wanderings,  I  certainly  ought  to  be  able  to  look  for 
expressions  of  feeling  with  me  from  home.  The  reason 
why  I  refer  to  this  is  that  in  reply  to  my  last  letter  to  you, 
you  only  threatened  to  write  to  Bishop  Bedell." 

This  letter,  at  length  reaching  the  calm  of  Guilford,  made 
a  tremendous  commotion.  It  was  long  before  the  father 
could  gather  himself  to  reply.  "The  contents  of  your 
letter,"  he  began,  "were  of  such  an  astounding  nature  as 
completely  to  nonplus  your  father  and  render  him  quite 
unable  to  prepare  for  and  perform  the  services  of  the 
following  Sunday.  I  was  utterly  unprepared  for  the 
intelligence  that  a  child  of  mine  could  ever  be  brought  to 
renounce  his  faith  in  the  religion  of  God  his  Maker  and 
Saviour.  The  blow  was  so  unexpected,  so  crushing,  you 
must  not  wonder,  my  dear  child,  that  I  have  not  written 
sooner,  but  that  I  am  able  to  write  at  all.  Already  borne 
down  by  the  weight  of  age,  infirmity,  and  prospective  want, 
yet  I  was  fondly  hoping  I  might  be  permitted  to  see  the 
day  when  my  son  should  be  sent  forth  an  earnest  and  able 
ambassador  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  What  I  can  do  for 
you,  my  dear  son,  I  know  not,  more  than  this,  to  pray  to 
that  personal  God,  the  God  of  all  truth  and  mercy,  beseech- 
ing Him  to  bring  back  to  Himself  my  erring  child,  and 
spare  him  for  the  Redeemer's  sake;  and  beseeching  my 
son  to  renounce  his  errors  and  return  to  his  former  faith 
and  allegiance.  .  .  .  Your  father's  pity  for  you,  Alex- 
ander, in  this  shipwreck  of  your  faith  is  not  withheld:  he 
would  not  be  human  if  it  could  be.  But,  alas!  what  can  it 
avail  you  —  or  the  sympathy  of  any  other  human  being, 
what  can  it  avail  you?  Were  it  not  better  for  you  at  once 
and  for  ever  to  abjure  the  ruinous  errors  you  have  embraced, 
and  seek  the  sympathy  of  Him  who  says,  '  Come  unto  me, 
all   ye    that   labour   and    are   heavy   laden?'  .  .  .  And 


A  FATHER'S  APPEAL  35 

now,  advice.  It  appears  that  you  have  been  led,  step  by 
step,  in  the  Serbonian  bog  of  German  infidelity.  ...  I 
do  not  simply  advise,  I  entreat,  I  beseech,  I  implore  you 
to  renounce  every  infidel  author,  your  Maurice,  your  Emer- 
son, your  Carlyle,  your  essayists.  Be  conformed  to  the 
old  Religion  as  taught  by  the  Primitive  Church  and  as 
now  symbolized  in  the  Apostles'  and  Nicene  Creeds.  If 
'an  independent  thinker'  cannot  bow  to  these  creeds,  tell 
me  how  in  the  world  he  can  bow  to  such  an  one  as  you  gave 
us  the  other  day  in  the  W.  Episcopalian,  manufactured  by 
Mr.  Maurice  and  his  associates.  What  a  marvellous  tissue 
of  assertions  and  contradictions  in  each  separate  article! 
Was  this  creed  the  offspring  of  independent  thinking?  Flee 
from  it,  my  child,  as  you  would  from  the  City  of  Destruc- 
tion, with  your  fingers  in  your  ears. " 

To  this  letter  Alexander  replied  that  he  was  deeply 
impressed  and  sincerely  thankful.  He  felt  the  overwhelm- 
ing love  and  yearning  in  all  its  pathetic  efforts  to  help.  He 
was  covered  with  remorse  because  his  frankness  had  brought 
such  evident  pain.  "My  philosophy,"  he  said,  "is  at 
present  one  of  irreverence  and  incredulity.  The  world  is 
involved  in  confusion.  I  can  see  no  buoys,  can  hold  by  no 
anchors,  discern  no  beacons.  Nothing  appears  fixed,  or 
certain,  or  true.  There  is,  I  am  almost  convinced,  no 
absolute  truth  here,  no  absolute  unwavering  standard  of 
morality.  I  doubt  —  doubt  everything  —  doubt  my  own 
existence,  and  that  of  the  external  world  about  me.  Doubt 
is  my  characteristic  at  present."  He  then  quoted  Hume  on 
his  darkness  and  despair,  and  made  the  words  his  own. 

"I  have  been  getting  into  this  state  gradually.  It  is  not 
so  much  independent  reading,  as  it  is  independent  thinking. 
Years  ago  when  I  was  teaching  school  I  held  discussions 
on  universalism  with  the  minister  at  Guilford  Centre,  and 
he  shook  my  former  unquestioning  faith  to  its  very  foun- 
dation. I  almost  doubted  that  there  was  a  God,  or,  if 
there  were,  that  He  heard  and  answered  prayer.     But  in 


36  BEXLEY  HALL 

those  days  it  was  easy  to  regain  confidence.  Still  I  was 
then  sowing  the  seed  of  which  I  am  now  reaping  the 
harvest." 

He  went  on  to  describe  how  as  a  boy  of  sixteen  he  had 
delighted  to  pick  out  of  the  papers  attacks  on  Christianity, 
refute  them  to  his  own  satisfaction,  and  lay  the  whole  thing 
aside  for  the  day  when  he  should  appear  as  a  champion  of 
Christianity.  His  orations  and  essays  in  college  all  bore 
on  the  subject  of  infidelity.  He  then  felt  sure  he  could 
answer  every  difficulty.  Since  his  valedictory,  in  which  he 
had  tried  to  show  God  the  centre  of  philosophy  as  well  as 
of  religion,  he  had  given  up  the  effort.  "Involuntarily  and 
suddenly,"  he  continued,  "my  mind  gave  way  as  if  it  had 
long  been  sustaining  a  burden  too  heavy  for  it,  and  I  then 
became  convinced  of  the  rationale  of  the  process,  the  in- 
ward war  I  had  been  so  long  waging  —  that  I  myself  who 
endeavoured  to  overthrow  unbelief  and  establish  the  truth, 
was  an  unbeliever. 

"I  never  expect  to  return  to  the  orthodox  standards,  as 
they  are  usually  held.  That  I  shall  be  led  to  embrace  the 
grand  essentials  and  requisites  to  salvation,  I  am  almost 
confident.  I  have  more  sympathy  and  agreement  how- 
ever with  the  Broad  Church  than  with  any  other  school, 
and  at  present  I  avow  myself  such.  I  have  read  everything 
which  comes  from  England  on  the  subject.  Bishop 
Colenso  is  a  means  to  an  end,  though  sadly  mistaken. 
The  whole  English  Church  is  tottering.  I  believe  every 
man  who  would  be  effective  hereafter  must  enter  into  and 
understand  the  change  which  is  passing  over  religion. 
The  effort  will  end  I  believe  in  establishing  more  firmly 
the  Church  of  God.  If  God  is  true  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  that.  But  the  force  of  the  revolution  will  be  to  adapt 
Christianity  to  the  character  of  the  age,  not  to  change  its 
inherent  nature.  It  takes  the  appearance  of  infidelity  and 
justly  shocks  the  religious  world.  But  the  movement  has 
its  deep  significance,  and  it  must  have  its  results." 


SYMPATHY  FOR  DOUBT  37 

So  thought  this  struggling  youth  of  twenty-two.  The 
new  age  with  its  problems  was  coming  on,  and  the  old 
leaders  did  not  quite  understand  what  the  youngsters 
meant  who  read  the  Westminster  Review.  The  Lord  was 
speaking  to  the  Samuels,  but  the  Elis  did  not  understand. 
In  this  dark  spring,  Dr.  Francis  Wharton,  who  had  become 
Rector  of  St.  Paul's,  Brookline,  held  out  his  always  friendly 
hand.  He  knew  that  Allen  needed  profounder  leadership 
than  Gambier  could  furnish;  so  he  suggested  that  the 
Rev.  George  Packard  ask  Allen  to  assist  him  in  the  parish 
at  Lawrence ;  that  he  might  study  at  Andover,  only  a  few 
miles  away. 

Accordingly,  the  break  came  with  Bexley  Hall  at  the 
end  of  the  middle  year.  He  had  been  longing  to  escape 
from  the  narrow  conditions,  but  when  the  time  came  to 
go,  it  was  with  a  wrench.  "It  will  be  hard  work,  leaving 
Gambier,"  he  wrote  to  his  mother,  "between  my  creditors 
on  the  one  hand  and  my  friends  on  the  other.  The  latter 
are  so  importunate  that  a  very  little  more  persuading  would 
make  me  feel  like  relinquishing  my  plans.  I  have  become 
attached  to  the  place  and  the  state." 

In  all  this  mental  turmoil  his  mother  gave  him  the  sym- 
pathy of  a  great  love.  She  felt  sure  that  he  held  firm  to 
the  Saviour,  and  in  that  simple  conviction  she  knew  that 
all  else  would  straighten  itself. 

In  the  providence  of  God  the  time  was  coming  when 
Alexander  Allen  was  to  make  a  refuge  where  perplexed 
youth  could  find  a  way  out  of  the  darkness  of  doubt  into 
Christ's  marvellous  light. 


CHAPTER   IV 

ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

1864  -  1867 

THE  summer  of  1864  Allen  spent  at  home.  The 
hill  country  about  Guilford  always  restored  him. 
Early  in  September  he  wrote  to  Percy  Browne,  then  just 
graduated  from  Kenyon:  "I  am  glad  to  know  that  you 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  you  have  mentioned  in  regard 
to  the  Christian  life.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  one  grand 
spiritual  essential  is  to  be  living  in  Christ.  Christ  must  be 
the  centre  and  groundwork  of  religious  faith.  From  Him 
we  must  draw  from  actual  living  communication  our  own 
life.  I  have  my  own  speculative  beliefs  on  the  relations 
in  which  He  stands  to  us,  and  can  sometimes  see  a  deeper 
meaning  than  is  at  first  evident  in  such  words  as,  'I  am  the 
vine,  ye  are  the  branches  ...  I  in  you  and  ye  in  me.' 
Inward  experience  will  give  them  a  meaning  which  no  words 
can  define.  It  electrifies  the  soul,  when  it  first  feels  in 
itself  the  power  of  Christ.  Those  words  of  St.  Augustine 
seem  to  me  philosophical  as  well  as  deeply  spiritual,  '  Thou 
hast  made  us  for  thyself,  and  our  souls  are  restless  till  they 
find  their  rest  in  thee.'  With  me  at  present  the  life  of 
Christ  is  more  predominant  than  His  death.  A  living 
Christ  I  should  love  to  preach  more  than  Christ  crucified. 
I  sometimes  think,  'What  if  the  phrase,  an  Elder  Brother, 
should  imply  some  deep  eternal  relationship,  eternal  as  the 
existence  of  God,  and  developing  in  time  with  the  coming 
of  Christ.'  Some  personal  experience  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  the  minister,  and  let  me  tell  you,  Percy  —  and  it 

38 


RETURN  OF  FAITH  39 

may  come  with  more  force  from  me,  for  I  speak  from 
experience,  and  am  beginning  to  rectify  the  errors  of  my 
past  course,  and  you  are  just  beginning  yours  —  that  the 
main  thing  of  the  Seminary  course  should  be  in  the  develop- 
ing this  inward  life  as  it  is  in  Christ.  I  didn't  think  so 
when  I  entered  the  Seminary,  but  I  find  now  that  to  be 
without  it,  a  minister's  life  is  likely  to  be  a  burden  hard  to 
be  borne.  It  seems  to  me  dishonest  for  a  minister  to  be 
preaching  that  which  he  does  not  know  to  be  true  by  having 
felt  in  himself  its  truth.  And  when  you  have  once  begun 
this  life  of  experience  you  will  feel,  as  I  most  painfully  do 
now,  how  short  the  time  is  for  you  to  develop  it  before  you 
are  called  upon  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  stand  up  as  a 
teacher  of  others. 

"It  is  harder  to  talk  upon  this  subject  than  it  is  to  write, 
and  I  am  glad  of  this  opportunity  of  expressing  myself. 
Probably  your  experience  has  been  this  summer  akin  to 
mine.  It  is  good  to  be  alone.  I  have  never  left  this  lonely 
little  village,  after  having  spent  the  vacation  here  in  silence 
and  obscurity,  without  going  back  to  college  a  wiser  and  a 
better  man.  The  year  in  which  my  difficulties  in  Gambier 
sprang  up  was  when  I  spent  my  summer  in  its  atmosphere, 
and  found  no  time  to  take  counsel  with  myself  as  to  my 
condition  and  progress.  Sad,  lonely,  and  dreary  as  my 
life  is  here,  as  far  as  all  associations  outside  myself  are 
concerned,  I  would  not  give  up  for  a  year  of  study  this 
interval  of  quiet  self-searching  communion  with  myself, 
Nature,  and  God.  I  find  that  thus  I  grow  larger,  capable 
of  assimilating  in  one,  great  differences  which  I  would  not 
have  thought  could  be  reconciled." 

This  letter  shows  the  spirit  in  which  Allen  entered 
Andover.  The  first  days  were  cheerless.  His  room,  20 
Bartlett  Hall,  was  cold  and  damp,  unfurnished  and  con- 
fused. But  he  sat  down  in  it  stolidly,  with  his  overcoat 
on,  waiting  for  his  practical  friend  Doty  to  come  and  help 
him  settle.     "Professor  Park,"  he  wrote,  "is  the  great  gun 


4o  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

here.  He  is  magnificent  looking,  and  his  lectures  are  the 
most  powerful  things  of  which  it  is  possible  to  conceive. 
Men  are  here  from  every  seminary  in  the  country  to  hear 
him.     I  shall  never  regret  coming." 

The  work  at  Lawrence  was  among  English  mill  opera- 
tives. He  went  over  Saturday  afternoons  to  call,  and  then 
again  Sunday  afternoons  to  hold  a  Sunday-school  and  an 
evening  service  in  a  hall,  returning  to  Andover  at  nine 
Sunday  night. 

''Willie"  Taylor  came  to  Harvard  this  year,  broke  down 
in  health,  and,  returning  to  Cincinnati,  received  long  affec- 
tionate letters  from  his  friend  in  Andover.  In  June  1865, 
Allen  wrote  to  him:  "I  once  believed  that  the  shell  or 
husk  which  clothed  the  germ  of  truth,  and  which  it  seemed 
to  me  the  creeds  had  too  much  reverenced,  was  rotten  and 
ready  to  fall  off,  and  allow  the  unimpeded  development  of 
the  soul  of  the  truth  itself.  Then  the  whole  Bible  history 
appeared  to  me  mostly  mythical,  but  those  myths  had  a 
deep  inward  significance.  As  to  Prayer,  I  rather  held  with 
Fichte  that  the  Being  above  us  was  so  great  that  it  were 
almost  blasphemy  to  intrude  into  His  presence.  But 
'earnestness'  summed  up  for  me  the  practical  duties  of 
religion.  .  .  .  You  ask  me  at  what  conclusion  I  have 
now  arrived.  I  think  then  in  the  first  place  that  there  is 
no  such  crisis  at  hand  as  I  had  anticipated.  It  is  not  the 
world's  method  of  progression.  It  will  never 'come.  By 
what  process  did  I  reach  this  conclusion?  Probably  there 
was  reaction,  to  begin  with.  I  was  tired  and  wearied  with 
endeavouring  to  construct  a  religion  for  myself.  I  began 
to  suspect  my  own  mental  weakness.  I  felt  a  yearning  for 
something  substantial,  time-worn,  honoured  with  the  devo- 
tion of  past  generations.  Theirs  was  a  common  humanity 
with  mine,  they  had  found  a  relief  for  the  soul's  unrest  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Church.  It  was  from  such  a  basis  as  this 
that  my  respect  for  the  past  began  to  grow  upon  me  and 
an    historical  Church  to  impose  its   necessity  upon  my 


THE  VISIBLE  CHURCH  41 

mind.  A  spiritual  Church  does  not  go  deep  enough  for 
the  sinfulness  of  men.  By  a  spiritual  Church  I  mean  one 
that  evolves  from  the  spiritual  consciousness  the  data  upon 
which  its  spiritual  life  rests.  It  may  satisfy  one  side  of 
our  natures,  but  it  is  only  a  half  truth.  The  historical 
Church,  which  comes  up  from  a  vale  of  tears,  bearing  about 
her  the  groans  and  confessions  of  all  her  children,  and  offer- 
ing to  them  and  us  all  the  only  consolation  suited  to  one  age 
and  to  all  ages  —  forgiveness  and  a  firm  hope  of  salvation 
through  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  This  is  the  other  side  of 
the  truth  without  which  no  Church  can  stand.  It  really 
amounts  to  justification  by  faith.  .  .  .  You  speak  of 
the  Love  of  God  as  the  essence  of  Christianity.  If  you 
have  come  to  feel  that,  the  remark  is  a  very  deep  one. 
I  should  say,  it  is  God's  Love  as  revealed  to  us  in  Christ. 
It  is  the  Love  of  Christ  which  is  the  essence  of  Christianity. 
Christ  is  the  great  central  truth  not  only  in  Christianity, 
but  also  in  the  history  of  the  world.  On  some  points  I 
am  sceptical,  on  some  rationalistic.  I  am  a  thoroughgoing 
Broad  Churchman  of  the  old  school.  The  position  of  the 
new  school  is  unnecessarily  abstract.  I  am  in  a  measure 
a  High  Churchman,  but  these  distinctions  I  do  not  attach 
much  importance  to,  compared  with  the  life  of  faith  in 
Christ  and  Him  crucified.  I  almost  feel  as  if  the  implan- 
tation of  this  faith  was  Divine,  supernatural,  the  gift  of 
God." 

The  authorities  at  Andover  were  becoming  interested 
in  their  student  from  Bexley  Hall.  On  June  15,  he 
wrote:  "Professor  Park  asked  me  what  I  intended  to  do 
after  graduating.  I  told  him  I  should  like  to  remain  at 
Andover  another  year.  He  said  he  had  been  intending  to 
speak  to  me  on  the  subject,  and  advised  me  to  remain  here 
a  year  or  two  years  more  and  take  up  a  more  extended 
course  of  study.  He  said  he  had  noticed  that  I  took  an 
interest  in  the  philosophical  aspects  of  modern  thought 
and  it  was  so  seldom  that  any  one  did  that  he  thought 


42  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

I  ought  to  pursue  the  subject  uninterruptedly  for  a  year  or 
more.  I  told  him  that  it  was  the  worst  preparation  for  a 
practical  ministry.  He  admitted  it,  but,  in  a  very  sympa- 
thetic manner,  he  declared  his  faith  in  metaphysics,  saying 
that  power  lay  in  the  man  who  could  wield  them.  He 
spoke  of  Choate  and  Webster.  He  said  he  loved  people 
who  split  hairs.     He  did  not  care  for  mere  orators." 

Allen  was  ordered  deacon  at  Emmanuel  Church, 
Boston,  by  Bishop  Eastburn,  July  5,  1865.  When  he 
returned  to  Andover,  Professor  Park  met  him  with  an 
amused  twinkle:  "You've  been  away,  Mr.  Allen.  I'm 
sorry  you've  missed  my  lecture  against  Episcopal  orders." 
Allen  gathered  courage,  and  replied,  "Oh,  Dr.  Park,  I've 
been  on  an  errand  practically  refuting  it:  I've  been  or- 
dained." 

He  wrote  to  Taylor  about  his  Lawrence  Sundays.  The 
singing  of  the  children  in  the  afternoon  moved  him.  "It 
goes  down  to  the  depths,  and  makes  me  sadder,  but  stronger. 
I  can  hardly  keep  back  the  tears."  He  felt  that  if  he  were 
to  study  "Divine  Philosophy,"  as  Professor  Park  called  it, 
he  must  save  himself  from  the  dangers  of  speculation  by 
keeping  close  to  the  practical,  in  "efforts  to  do  good." 
For  this  reason,  too,  he  kept  away  from  the  inn,  and  spent 
his  Sundays  with  various  parishioners,  eating  at  their 
tables,  and  entering  into  all  their  interests.  "I  am  becom- 
ing interested  in  people,"  he  wrote,  "who  once  seemed  to 
me  to  possess  nothing  in  common  with  me."  He  then 
went  on  to  speak  of  his  sermons:  "In  the  morning  I  use 
notes,  for  I  find  I  cannot  carry  more  than  one  full-fledged 
sermon  in  my  head  at  a  time.  In  the  evening  I  speak  as  I 
feel  or  as  occasion  dictates.  I  seem  to  myself  to  stand  in  a 
charmed  circle  as  I  talk  to  them.  They  listen,  down  to  the 
most  careless  children.  It  is  sympathy.  I  take  no  credit. 
It  rather  depresses  me,  for  it  is  not  intellectual  power  that 
attracts  them — this  they  could  not  appreciate;  and  it  is 
not  beauty  of  thought  or  language,  for  neither  of  these  I 


PREACHING  43 

possess.  I  wish  I  could  feel  though  that  they  came  to 
hear  a  man  in  earnest.  But  it  is  not  all  earnestness.  I 
believe  it  has  a  close  resemblance  to  it,  but  it  is  a  highly 
excited  nervous  action  that  makes  me  feel  as  though  I 
were  on  fire,  and  makes  me  speak  so,  and  it  is  this  wild 
excitement  which  I  believe  takes  off  from  my  life  every  time 
I  speak.  I  do  not  usually  get  over  the  effect  of  my  evening 
work  till  the  middle  of  the  week.  Then  it  is  nearly  time  to 
begin  the  same  process  over  again.  I  live  Monday  and 
Tuesday  under  the  excitement;  when  it  passes  away  then 
comes  the  depression  and  the  irritable  condition.  How 
long  I  can  keep  on  so,  I  don't  know.  Practice  increases 
rather  than  diminishes  the  difficulty."  This  fall  of  1865 
he  was  preaching  a  series  of  sermons  on  the  Bible  in  Rela- 
tion to  Salvation.  He  was  getting  away  from  the  Evan- 
gelical language  of  his  boyhood,  and  was  putting  his  answers 
into  the  concrete  texts,  "Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  give 
to  the  poor";  " Repent  and  be  baptized";  "Believe  on 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  He  was  troubled  to  explain  even 
to  himself  what  it  is  to  believe  in  Christ.  He  felt  that 
a  man  must  find  out  what  it  meant.  With  the  hard 
work  he  rarely  slept  without  dreaming,  and,  oddly  enough, 
always  of  Nantucket. 

In  this  same  confiding  letter  to  Taylor,  he  confessed  how 
glad  he  was  that  the  people  were  so  easy  to  please,  because 
his  mind  was  in  an  experimental  condition,  and  there  were 
no  heresy-hunters  among  them;  so  his  religious  views 
could  develop  naturally  and  freely.  He  was  beginning  to 
feel  that  he  could  not  be  both  student  and  preacher.  "I 
shall  decide  soon,"  he  wrote  in  another  letter,  "which  I 
shall  be:  the  worst  of  it  is  that  it  involves  the  now-or-never 
principle.  If  the  reading  is  not  done  now  it  never  will  be 
done." 

So  we  come  to  the  end  of  1865  to  find  the  deacon  of 
twenty-four  leading  for  six  days  the  life  of  a  student,  and, 
on  Sunday,  the  most  vigorous  life  of  a  practical  parson. 


44  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer,  his  fellow  student  at 
Andover  and  close  friend  always  afterwards,  recalls  how 
they  always  looked  upon  Allen  as  a  recluse,  a  self-indulgent 
scholar,  caring  nothing  for  men,  till  they  learned  to  their 
amazement  that  he  was  giving  his  utmost  strength  to  a 
congregation  of  mill  operatives  in  the  neighbouring  town. 
Every  stranger  coming  to  Andover  said  that  it  was  im- 
possible. But  there  was  no  question  about  it:  he  got  hold 
of  these  simple  people;  and  many  in  Andover  went  over 
to  Lawrence  to  see  how  he  did  it;  and  they  too  fell  under 
the  spell.  It  was  the  old  missionary  spirit  which  sent 
him  to  his  books.  Mr.  Palmer  recalls  also  that  there  was 
no  trace  of  his  poverty  about  him.  The  distinction  in  his 
manner,  simple  and  straight,  but  very  reserved,  gave  to 
his  clothes  a  grace  that  no  newness  nor  fineness  could  give. 
He  himself  remembered,  to  his  delighted  amusement,  that 
coming  out  of  chapel  one  morning,  he  heard  the  whisper, 
"He's  rich." 

Graduating  from  Andover  in  1865,  he  delivered  a  com- 
mencement part  on  ''Christianity  an  Organic  Develop- 
ment." Being  then  a  graduate,  and  therefore  obliged  to 
seek  quarters  outside  the  seminary  buildings,  he  took  rooms 
over  a  book-shop  and  printing-office,  and  there,  with  his 
books  about  him,  he  studied.  The  picture  which  his  friends 
had  of  him  was  of  coming  in  to  find  him  absorbed 
in  Alford's  Greek  Testament,  which  was  new  then.  He 
was  ploughing  through  it,  line  by  line.  His  notebooks, 
filled  with  extracts,  show  how  carefully  and  widely  he  was 
reading.  He  warned  Taylor  that  he  must  cultivate  drudg- 
ery, for  the  scholar,  however  brilliant,  never  attained  with- 
out drudgery.  He  and  Taylor  exchanged  lists  of  books, 
and  commented  on  the  books  they  were  reading.  He  was 
digging  out  the  thought  of  Kant,  Fichte,  Schleiermacher, 
Locke,  Bacon,  Mill,  Whately;  he  was  looking  into  Strauss, 
Renan,  Rousseau;  Coleridge  was  perpetually  giving  him 
fruitful  suggestions;  De  Quincey,  Charles  Lamb,  Words- 


READING  45 

worth,  Keble,  refreshed  him;  in  Essays  and  Reviews  he 
liked  Temple's  essay,  and  especially  Temple  himself; 
Anselm,  Bernard,  Richard  Baxter,  Jonathan  Edwards, 
Bushnell,  were  helping  him  to  construct  his  own  the- 
ology; men  of  the  day,  Newman,  Kingsley,  Stanley, 
Ruskin,  Froude,  Clough,  Matthew  Arnold,  Agassiz,  were 
of  absorbing  interest  to  him;  Goethe,  Lessing,  Shake- 
speare, Plato,  Cicero,  he  was  constantly  quoting;  Vaughan's 
Hours  with  the  Mystics  was  a  book  after  his  own  heart  — 
and  he  used  playfully  to  tell  his  students  in  after  years  that 
this  was  a  book  every  gentleman  should  own.  Maurice 
was  his  master,  so  far  as  he  called  any  man  master;  and 
to  him  he  gave  affection  as  well  as  respect.  Mr.  Palmer 
recalls  that  one  day  he  was  criticizing  Maurice  for  dodging 
the  question  in  the  sermon  on  Jonah  and  then  in  general 
he  said  that  Maurice  lost  himself  in  a  sea  of  words.  Allen 
could  not  stand  it.  The  words  hurt  him  —  as  if  one 
had  spoken  against  his  mother.  Maurice  was  not  to 
him  merely  a  writer,  he  was  a  person.  Nothing  in  these 
Andover  days  could  shake  his  allegiance  to  him.  He 
always  spoke  of  him  with  a  hush. 

He  was  reading  largely  to  fortify  and  clarify  his  own 
impressions.  To  this  end  he  sought  in  the  books  of  men 
whom  he  respected  to  discover  what  they  thought  on  his 
problem.  He  was  not  interested  in  getting  at  a  man's 
system.  He  wished  to  have  his  own  system,  he  did  not 
want  to  have  any  philosopher  swallow  him.  So  it  was  the 
man  who  suggested  who  was  dearest  to  him.  He  fixed 
early  upon  his  independence  and  demanded  to  think  out 
his  own  thought.  He  was  reading  history  in  these  years, 
but  history  was  interesting  as  the  bearer  of  philosophy. 

One  of  the  subjects  which  he  was  fighting  out  for  himself 
was  the  future  life.  To  William  Taylor  he  wrote,  this 
winter:  "The  question  of  Future  Punishment  is  very 
difficult,  but  I  must  profess  my  belief  in  it.  Even  eternal 
future  punishment  seems   to  stand  on  sound  logic.    It 


46  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

seems  to  me  to  rest  upon  the  principle  that  the  tendency 
of  sin  is  to  perpetuate  itself,  on  and  on  for  ever.  It  would 
be  contradicting  one  of  Nature's  laws  for  God  to  interfere 
with  it.  It  may  be  that  in  the  other  world  a  man  passes 
through  some  Lethe,  and  thus  with  the  past  life  entirely 
obliterated  is  allowed  to  start  upon  another  career  of  pro- 
bation. But  on  this  theory  there  would  be  no  such  thing 
as  progress  in  the  universe,  always  providing  that  it  was 
possible  for  man  to  sin.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  prop- 
agating nature  of  evil  is  a  sufficient  basis  for  the  Doctrine 
of  Endless  Punishment.  It  is  harder  to  believe  in  what  is 
called  universal  salvation,  for  me,  than  particular  salva- 
tion. I  could  not  believe  the  former  if  I  should  try.  It 
lacks  sound  reasoning,  and  is  sentimental.  But  one 
difficulty  in  all  reasoning  on  the  subject  is  the  vagueness 
of  the  words  Punishment  and  Salvation.  They  belong  to 
an  old  Theology.  I  should  like  to  see  the  subject  reasoned 
out  on  new  principles.  Professor  Park  does  so  in  a  measure, 
but  not  as  I  should  like  to  see  it.  There  is  a  theory  — 
of  English  Churchmen,  I  believe  —  that  it  is  the  tendency 
of  evil  to  intensify  and  exhaust  itself;  that  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  evil  must  be  finite;  that  to  think  other- 
wise is  blasphemy  against  God.  But  I  do  not  know  in 
what  evidence  this  assertion  exists,  certainly  not  on  obser- 
vation in  this  world,  or  experience  of  it  in  the  heart." 

William  Taylor  had  asked  him  about  so-called  danger- 
ous books.  '"If  any  man  will  do  the  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  doctrine,'"  Allen  quoted  to  him  in  return.  "The 
practical  life,  if  it  is  conformed  to  the  life  of  Christ,  will 
neutralize  the  otherwise  one-sided  influence  in  mere  specu- 
lative reading.  Speculation  not  only  in  Religion  but  every- 
where else  is  dangerous  unless  the  heart  is  active  and  thus 
balances  and  corrects  the  head."  Friendship,  indeed, 
seems  to  reach  its  crest  in  these  letters  to  Taylor.  It  is 
love  of  the  highest  in  his  friend  which  inspires  all  the 
counsel.     "The  greatest  pleasure  I  ever  had  in  any  corre- 


PROFESSOR  PARK  47 

spondence,"  he  wrote  to  Taylor  at  this  time,  "I  have  had 
in  this  to  you." 

As  we  pause  here  at  the  opening  of  1866,  it  will  be  wise 
to  look  for  a  moment  at  the  influences  at  Andover.  The 
fine  friendship  with  Taylor  was  the  undercurrent.  On 
the  surface  were  the  distinguished  teachers  that  then  drew 
men  from  far.  Chief  of  these  was  Park.  Park  was  not, 
it  is  now  known,  either  philosopher  or  theologian;  he  was 
rather  a  superb  lawyer,  to  whom  it  fell  to  defend  the 
inheritance  of  the  New  England  Theology.  As  one  of  his 
wisest  pupils  has  said,  he  was  a  Schoolman,  born  out  of 
due  time,  using  powers  of  the  first  order  for  a  third- 
rate  task.  He  had  an  impressive,  striking  face,  burning, 
penetrating  eyes.  He  walked  with  a  half  stagger.  He 
was  full  of  jest.  What  Wagner  was  to  Bayreuth,  that  was 
Park  to  Andover.  The  students  thought  that  Wall  Street 
and  Threadneedle  Street  were  waiting  for  news  from  the 
last  lecture.  His  lectures  were  from  eleven  to  twelve  and 
at  half-past  twelve  the  men  sat  down  to  dinner.  And  all 
the  talk  was  of  Park's  lecture:  the  discussion  was  fast 
and  furious.  The  late  Joseph  Cook,  who  was  in  Andover 
at  this  time,  is  remembered  to  have  resented  this  intru- 
sion of  students'  chatter  after  the  master  had  spoken: 
"Don't,  don't,"  he  cried,  "  put  a  hen  coop  on  Mt.  Sinai!" 
Then  he  thumped  the  table  with  his  fist  so  hard  that 
all  the  tumblers  danced.  Allen  distrusted  and  adored 
Park.  His  following  of  Park  was  sometimes  of  terror;  often 
of  fascination  with  his  marvellous  acting.  Park  was  an 
intellectual  gladiator,  fighting  for  the  truth  committed  to 
him.  He  came  to  Andover  a  radical;  he  died  a  conserva- 
tive. His  method  was  by  proof-texts;  for  though  he 
treated  some  parts  of  the  Bible  cavalierly,  he  found  the 
Bible  inerrant  in  everything  it  was  intended  to  teach. 
When  a  discussion  reached  a  hard  pass,  Park  twirled  his 
glasses  and  told  a  story  —  a  story  so  beguiling  that  the 
men  forgot  the  difficulty. 


48  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

This  man  taught  Allen  many  things,  but  Allen  never 
called  him  master.  He  felt  the  hollowness  of  Park's  plead- 
ing, even  while  he  recognized  the  majesty  of  the  man,  and 
bowed  his  head  with  the  rest  before  the  superb  genius. 

A  more  modern  man  in  the  seminary  was  Egbert  C. 
Smyth,  who  taught  history.  He  was  more  of  a  scholar, 
though  he  had  the  German  habit  of  huddling  facts  together 
without  giving  them  any  special  significance.  He  had 
read  widely  and  had  generous  sympathies,  but  he  could 
neither  teach  nor  interpret.  He  opened  up  vistas,  and 
looked  out  towards  the  future.  He  joined  his  pupil  in 
knowledge  and  affection  for  Maurice.  Years  later,  the 
pupil  spoke  of  him  as  "a  plodding  literalist,  timid,  unable 
to  generalize,  confused  by  details  —  a  man  who  does  not 
know  himself.  That  is  what  I  thought  of  him  when  I  sat 
under  him  at  Andover.  He  struck  me  as  inferior  to  Park. 
I  remember  that  one  day  in  his  lecture  I  became  rather 
disgusted  at  hearing  him  speak  several  times  of  the  318 
pastors  at  Nicaea,  and  I  asked  him  if  they  were  not  more 
correctly  described  as  bishops  at  that  time.  I  did  not 
mean  to  embarrass  him,  but  unfortunately  I  did  so  to  an 
extent  which  I  regretted.  He  called  them  bishops  after 
that.  He  knew  well  enough  that  they  were,  but  he  was 
congregationalizing  the  history  for  his  own  purpose." 

The  third  notable  figure  in  the  Andover  faculty  was 
Professor  Phelps,  who  taught  homiletics.  Allen  re- 
sembled him  somewhat  in  looks  and  in  cultivation  and 
refinement  of  manners.  But  the  pupil  escaped  the  vanities 
of  the  teacher.  Austin  Phelps  had  marked  reputation 
as  a  preacher,  being  able  to  move  people  by  his  literary 
gifts ;  but  he  was  not  a  scholar.  "  He  is  my  ideal  of  a  literary 
preacher,"  Allen  wrote  of  him  to  William  Taylor;  and  it  is 
certain,  from  words  of  admiration  dropped  in  his  letters, 
that  he  received  much  from  Phelps  on  the  literary  side. 
The  fact  that  he  copied  a  long  sermon  from  Phelps  into  his 
Commonplace  Book  confirms  this  conviction. 


ORDINATION  49 

On  June  24,  1866,  Alexander  Allen  was  ordained  to  the 
priesthood  by  Bishop  Eastburn  at  St.  John's,  Framing- 
ham.  He  had  written  to  Taylor,  a  little  before,  that  he 
felt  like  going  to  his  funeral.  "As  I  come  near  the  time 
to  which  I  have  so  many  years  looked  forward  I  can  feel 
only  saddened  and  humiliated."  Evidently  Bishop  East- 
burn  allowed  the  service  to  be  as  much  like  a  funeral  as 
possible,  for  the  home  letters  speak  of  it  as  being  a  "very 
shabby  service." 

Letters  came  to  him  from  old  friends,  full  of  affection 
and  loyalty.  They  all  addressed  him  as  Viets,  which  was 
his  college  name.  That  he  saved  all  their  letters  reveals 
how  thoroughly  he  valued  the  depth  and  flavour  of  their 
friendship. 

It  was  still  with  William  Taylor  that  he  exchanged 
most  intimate  thoughts.  He  told  Taylor  that  he  must 
read  Frederick  Robertson's  Life,  yet  he  confessed  that  the 
Life  had  destroyed  for  him  the  charm  of  the  sermons.  "I 
had  become,"  he  added,  "so  interested  in  him  from  reading 
the  sermons,  that  I  waited  impatiently  for  his  Memoir  to 
come  out,  and  when  it  did,  I  read  it  with  the  deepest 
interest  and  could  read  nothing  else  till  I  had  finished  it. 
But  I  laid  it  down  dissatisfied.  It  was  like  getting  to  the 
end  of  a  novel  of  which  the  interest  centres  in  the  plot. 
And  when  that  is  unravelled  you  care  nothing  more  for 
the  story."  Then  he  passed  to  himself:  "I  feel  as  though 
I  were  undergoing  a  great  mental  change  myself.  I  no 
longer  look  with  contempt  upon  Evangelicism.  I  really 
believe  sometimes  that  I  am  coming  round  to  all  of  the  old 
positions  which  I  had  long  abandoned.  I  feel  as  though 
as  religious  experiences  grow  so  does  my  appreciation  of 
those  Evangelical  truths  which  are  said  to  be  distasteful 
to  the  carnal  mind,  the  natural  man.  I  have  been  thinking 
lately  of  those  expressions,  found  in  all  Evangelical  writers, 
about  giving  up  all  pride  of  reason,  and  simply  believing, 
taking  as  truth  what  the  Bible  declares.  Evangelicism 
5 


50  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

corresponds  most  nearly  with  St.  Paul's  teaching.  I  am 
beginning  to  feel  St.  Paul's  remark  about  the  preaching  of 
the  Cross.  I  begin  to  like  to  preach  those  old  doctrines, 
even  to  use  the  stereotyped  expressions.  I  can't  under- 
stand myself,  but  I  feel  as  if  I  must  stop  speculating. 
Reason  does  not  help  me  in  believing.  It  only  hinders  me 
from  full  acceptance  of  many  things.  It  is  pleasant  to 
repose  in  the  old  faith  which  has  sustained  eighteen  cen- 
turies of  Christian  life,  unquestioningly,  like  a  child  in  its 
mother's  arms.  I  feel  myself  unable  to  reconstruct  Chris- 
tianity. I  know  intellectually  its  weak  points,  but  morally 
it  affects  me,  and  that  is  enough.  I  must  have  some  theory 
of  salvation,  and  some  theory,  too,  not  of  my  own  or  of 
modern  devising.  It  is  pleasant  —  it  is  more  than  pleas- 
ant —  it  thrills  me  with  deep  satisfaction  and  quiet  joy 
to  hear  of  Christ  in  whose  blood  our  sins  are  blotted  out, 
who  bore  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree,  who  suffered, 
the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God.  .  .  . 
As  to  the  love  of  God,  I  may  believe  in  that,  but  it  is  under 
a  cloud  even  in  this  world.  I  cannot  reconcile  the  misery 
I  see  with  omnipotent  love.  It  cannot  be  done.  We  can 
only  trust  God  to  be  doing  what  in  His  wisdom  He  knows 
to  be  best.  Why  not  do  so  with  the  future?"  Then  the 
letter  takes  a  sharp  turn.  "Did  I  write  you,  dear  Willie," 
he  went  on,  "that  Percy  Browne  paid  me  a  visit  in  Andover 
several  months  ago?  I  had  a  very  pleasant  time  with  him. 
He  fortunately  brought  with  him  a  dozen  sermons,  and  I 
enjoyed  hearing  him  read  them.  They  were  excellent. 
I  recall,  as  I  write,  one  afternoon  when,  after  he  had  read 
me  three  of  them  at  one  sitting,  we  were  both  of  us  unac- 
countably seized  with  a  strange  drowsiness,  and,  singularly 
enough,  both  of  us  fell  into  the  profoundest  slumber  for 
the  space  of  more  than  two  hours.  I  think  those  sermons 
must  tell  upon  any  congregation." 

After  Christmas,  1866,  he  wrote  to  his  mother:  "I  nearly 
forgot  to  tell  you  that  we  had  the  choral  service  in  St. 


ESSAY  AT  CONVOCATION  51 

John's  Christmas-Eve,  with  a  double  responsive  choir.  It 
was  quite  effective.  I  then  delivered  a  strong  Church 
sermon,  in  which  I  compared  the  Church  with  the  bodies 
of  dissenting  Christians,  much  to  the  advantage  of  the 
former.     I  think  father  would  have  enjoyed  the  services." 

His  voice  was  even  more  melodious  than  in  later  years. 
There  was  always  a  magic  compulsion  in  its  soft  low  tones. 
He  modestly  said  that  it  explained  the  success  of  his 
Lawrence  preaching. 

In  February,  1867,  he  read  the  essay  at  the  Annual 
Convocation  of  the  Clergy  of  Massachusetts,  in  Boston. 
He  took  as  his  subject  "Free  Thought  and  the  Method 
in  which  it  Should  be  Met  by  the  Clergy."  The  essay, 
which  took  an  hour  and  a  half  to  read,  was  a  summary  of 
his  convictions.  Work  was  the  solvent  of  doubt;  free 
thought  widens,  but  lames:  action  narrows,  but  animates. 
Missionary  and  benevolent  activity  is  the  best  evidence 
that  God  is  with  us.  He  ran  through  modern  movements 
in  England  and  Germany  with  an  assurance  surprising  in 
a  youth  of  twenty-six.  The  Evangelical  Bishop  and  the 
ritualistic  Rector  of  the  Advent  mingled  their  voices  in 
praise.  A  young  clergyman  from  Worcester,  named 
Huntington,  wrote  a  grateful  letter  about  it.  Urged  to 
publish  the  essay,  Allen  fled  to  Professor  Park  for  advice. 
As  Allen  read  the  essay  to  him,  he  felt  the  old  man's  sharp 
eyes  gleaming  at  him  out  of  the  darkness.  Dr.  Park  ad- 
vised him  to  publish  the  essay  as  a  pamphlet,  but  this 
Allen  never  did.     It  was  his  "Apologia." 

In  March,  by  Bishop  Eastburn's  invitation,  he  delivered 
the  second  of  the  Price  Lectures  in  Trinity  Church.  It 
was,  under  the  title  of  "The  True  Conception  of  the 
Deity,"  a  leading  up  to  Christ.  These  public  appearances 
may  have  brought  him  to  the  minds  of  certain  influential 
laymen  who  were  planning  a  divinity  school  in  Cambridge, 
but  more  than  all  was  the  persistent  affection  of  Dr.  Francis 
Wharton.     Dr.  Wharton  had  urged  his  name  upon  the 


52  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

trustees  and  sought  the  powerful  commendation  of  the 
king  of  the  theological  world,  Professor  Park.  On  April  15, 
1867,  Allen  wrote  home:  "I  have  been  offered  to-day  the 
position  of  adjunct  professor  in  the  new  Episcopal  Divinity 
School  at  Cambridge.  The  department  is  Ecclesiastical 
History.     I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  accept." 

In  May  a  call  came  to  be  assistant  at  St.  Ann's,  Brook- 
lyn, and  to  be  in  full  charge  for  a  year  while  the  rector  was 
abroad.  It  was  an  opportunity  beckoning  him  strongly 
to  the  parochial  ministry,  for  which  he  had  demonstrated 
his  fitness.  He  had  the  puzzling  task  to  determine  whether 
he  was  to  be  teacher  or  preacher.  He  seems  to  have  felt 
no  elation  over  the  recognition  implied  by  the  calls,  but 
wrote  that  he  wished  that  they  had  come  later,  when  he 
could  feel  that  Lawrence  was  better  able  to  sustain  a 
change. 

Then  came  the  event  which  made  all  calls  seem  vanity. 
Monday,  May  20,  he  had  gone  to  Andover  to  get  books 
from  the  library.  A  little  before  noon  he  returned  to  his 
room  in  Lawrence,  and  there  on  his  desk  lay  a  telegram. 
"I  think,"  he  wrote,  "I  knew  what  it  contained  before  I 
opened  it.  It  was  dated  Sunday,  May  19,  1867,  and  it 
read:  'Your  father  died  this  morning.  Come.'  I  sit 
down  now  at  the  distance  of  more  than  five  weeks 
from  the  time,  and  the  scene  is  yet  too  fresh  for  me  to 
write.  It  overpowers  me  to  think  of  it.  It  was  a  stun- 
ning blow." 

This  sorrow  so  unnerved  him  that  in  June  he  was  quite 
ill  with  congestion  of  the  lungs.  June  27,  he  wrote  to  his 
brother:  "I  have  been  reading  over  my  letters  from  Father. 
They  seem  to  be  fuller  of  affection,  for  their  very  reserve. 
Some  of  them  I  did  not  feel  equal  to  reading.  I  have  tied 
them  together  and  it  is  a  sacred  package.  ...  I  had  a 
dream  of  him  after  I  came  back  to  Lawrence.  He  appeared 
to  me  and  I  went  round  with  him  holding  his  warm  and 
loving  hand.     He  did  not  look  as  he  did  for  the  last  two 


DEATH  OF  ETHAN  ALLEN  53 

years,  but  as  I  think  he  looked  when  we  were  children.  We 
appeared  to  be  in  some  place  that  was  not  familiar  to  me. 
I  introduced  him  with  a  sense  of  triumph  that  he  was  not 
dead.  I  cannot  but  think  that  there  may  have  been  in  it 
something  more  than  a  mere  vision." 

Friends  comforted  him.  Postlethwaite  came  to  spend 
August  with  him,  as  he  stayed  by  his  work  at  Lawrence; 
Taylor  came  in  October.  His  mother,  assisted  by  the 
gallant  General  Phelps,  broke  up  the  housekeeping  at 
Guilford  and  with  her  daughter  removed  to  the  lonely  and 
tranquil  farm  at  Rehoboth.  In  a  short  holiday  which  he 
allowed  himself  in  September  he  visited  Nantucket  and 
preached  in  his  father's  old  church.  He  had  also  preached, 
with  overwhelming  emotions,  a  sermon  in  the  Guilford 
church  the  Sunday  after  his  father's  death. 

The  decision  fell  to  Cambridge,  but  the  school  buildings 
were  not  ready  till  winter,  and  Lawrence  still  needed  him. 
December  8  was  his  last  Sunday  at  St.  John's,  Lawrence. 
The  last  day  of  1867  he  sat  down  in  his  room  at  Cam- 
bridge to  review  the  year.  "This  year,"  he  wrote,  "has 
been  the  most  marked  in  my  whole  life.  It  took  away 
from  us  our  dear  Father.  I  am  just  beginning,  little  by 
little,  to  feel  my  loss.  It  is  irreparable.  It  is  agony  to 
think  I  never  again  in  this  world  can  see  him.  May  God 
give  me  strength  to  imitate  his  blest  example,  for  he  followed 
Christ,  and  to  me  seemed  almost  perfect.  May  I  do  the 
work  which  God  has  given  me  to  do  faithfully,  as  in  His 
sight.  I  sat  down  to  write  some  reflections  of  the  year, 
but  the  thought  of  dear  Father  is  too  much  for  me.  His 
loss  to  me  is  the  meaning  of  1867.  His  death  has  changed 
life  for  me.  It  is  now  a  serious  thing  to  live,  and  the  goal 
seems  always  in  view.  The  year  has  brought  blessings  and 
mercies.  Father,  if  he  could  speak  to  me,  would  tell  me  to 
be  of  good  cheer  and  manfully  to  take  up  my  work  and  do 
it  with  my  might.  O  God,  help  me.  We  are  weakness 
without   Thee.     Make   me   more   entirely   Thine.     Make 


54  ANDOVER  AND  LAWRENCE 

my  consecration  of  myself  to  Thee,  mind  and  soul,  com- 
plete. Do  for  me  as  Thou  wilt.  Make  me  an  instrument 
to  Thy  glory  in  this  world,  and  then  receive  me  into  the 
blessed  mansions  which  Christ  has  gone  to  prepare  for 
them  that  love  Him.     Amen." 


CHAPTER  V 

BEGINNINGS    OF    THE    CAMBRIDGE    THEOLOGICAL 
SCHOOL 

1868-1872 

IN  January,  1867,  Benjamin  Tyler  Reed,  of  Boston,  de- 
posited the  sum  of  $100,000  in  the  hands  of  certain 
gentlemen  whom  he  nominated  as  trustees  of  an  institu- 
tion to  be  known  as  the  Episcopal  Theological  School  in 
Cambridge  —  Edward  Sprague  Rand,  Robert  Charles 
Winthrop,  and  John  Phelps  Putnam.  To  these  he  after- 
wards added  Amos  Adams  Lawrence  and  James  Sullivan 
Amory.  The  founder  expressed  his  purpose  by  asking 
that  the  School  always  "distinctly  set  forth  the  great 
doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith  alone  in  the  Atonement 
and  Righteousness  of  Christ,  as  taught  in  .  .  .  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  according  to  the  natural  construction 
of  the  said  Articles  (Scripture  alone  being  the  standard), 
as  adopted  at  the  Reformation,  and  not  according  to  any 
tradition,  doctrine,  or  usage  prior  to  said  Reformation 
not  contained  in  Scripture."  To  the  outsider  the  most 
distinctive  mark  of  the  School  was  that  its  trustees  were 
laymen,  as  a  vestry  charged  with  the  temporalities,  thus 
leaving  the  spiritualities  entirely  to  the  clergy  of  the  faculty. 
Thus  fashioned  on  the  lines  of  a  parish,  the  School  has 
enjoyed  a  life  of  unusual  freedom  and  harmony. 

Dr.  John  Seely  Stone  became  the  first  Dean.  Dr. 
Wharton  accepted  the  chair  of  Homiletics,  and  Peter  Henry 
Steenstra  accepted  the  chair  of    Biblical    Interpretation. 

55 


56     THE  CAMBRIDGE  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 

Phillips  Brooks  declined  a  post  at  the  School,  attractive 
though  it  was  to  him.1 

Cambridge  was  chosen  as  the  home  of  the  School,  that 
it  might  be  near  Harvard,  and  have  the  advantage  of  its 
library  and  of  its  traditions  of  learning  and  freedom. 
Those  who  did  not  like  the  School  were  prone  to  say  that 
it  was  tainted  with  Harvard  Unitarianism;  and  its  staunch 
friends,  men  like  Dr.  Packard  and  Dr.  Dyer,  sometimes 
fell  into  a  panic  about  it.  Even  Dean  Stone,  though  assur- 
ing Dr.  Dyer  that  the  institution  was  thoroughly  orthodox, 
conceded  that  it  was  foolish  to  give  the  enemy  such  a 
chance  to  blaspheme,  and  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  plant 
it  in  Cambridge. 

Dr.  Stone  came  to  Cambridge  in  October,  and  took  up 
his  abode  in  a  house  at  the  corner  of  Mt.  Auburn  street  and 
Coolidge  avenue,  hard  by  the  cemetery.  A  neighbouring 
house  was  to  be  the  School,  containing  rooms  to  be  used  as 
a  temporary  chapel,  sleeping  rooms  for  the  students,  and 
rooms  for  Mr.  Allen,  as  the  only  resident  teacher,  besides 
Dr.  Stone.  Mr.  Steenstra  was  to  remain  in  Newton  till  a 
house  could  be  secured  for  him,  and  Dr.  Wharton  was  to 
stay  permanently  with  his  parish  in  Brookline.  So  Dr. 
Stone  sat  down  and  waited,  and  wrote  patient,  sweet,  and 
dreary  letters  to  his  dear  friend,  Dr.  Dyer,  in  New  York. 
"Dr.  Stone  wrote  me,"  Mr.  Allen  afterwards  said,  "about 
the  middle  of  October,  that  three  students  had  been  heard 
from,  but  he  was  not  sure  that  they  were  coming.  We 
waited  a  little  longer,  and  in  the  middle  of  November  he 
wrote  me  that  a  student  was  plainly  in  sight.  So  about 
the  fifth  of  December,  1867,  I  came  to  Cambridge,  and 
took  rooms  in  the  house  on  Mt.  Auburn  street.  There  I 
waited  for  a  month,  and  no  student  came.  It  was  on  the 
first  day  of  January,  1868,  and  it  was  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  that  the  School  opened.  A  student  by  the 
name  of  Sylvester  —  from  Danvers  —  presented  himself. 
1  Life  and  Letters  of  Phillips  Brooks,  vol.  i.  p.  588. 


EARLY  PUPILS  57 

I  remember  well  the  day.  It  was  a  dark  winter  afternoon 
and  rather  cold.  We  had  a  large  fire  in  the  open  grate, 
and  at  four  o'clock  he  came  into  the  study  and  sat  down, 
and  we  talked  over  Church  History.  That  was  the  open- 
ing of  the  Theological  School." 

Through  its  early  history  the  School  was  extremely 
small.  Dr.  Stone's  well-deserved  reputation  was  offset 
by  the  coolness  of  bishops  who  suspected  a  school  planted 
near  Harvard  with  no  convention  or  bishop  to  control  it. 
The  friends  of  the  School  did  not  regret  this  slow  growth. 
It  gave  the  teachers  time  to  find  themselves,  and  it  bound 
teachers  and  students  into  the  beneficent  intimacies  of  a 
religious  family.  While  the  institution  dwelt  in  tabernacles, 
or,  as  Mr.  Allen  would  say,  in  its  own  hired  house,  the 
Prayer  Book  Services  for  family  prayers  were  used  rather 
than  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer.  Mr.  Allen  was  the 
"house-father,"  and  being  only  twenty-seven  years  old 
was  companion  and  friend  as  well  as  leader  to  the  men 
committed  to  his  care.  He  enjoyed  the  conversation  of 
young  men  always,  and  always  treated  them  as  if  they 
knew  as  much  as  he.  His  letters  to  his  mother  during  these 
early  years  note  the  coming  of  such  students  as  Arthur 
Lawrence,  James  H.  Lee,  Charles  S.  Lester,  and  others,  in 
whom  he  took  delight.  He  was  feeling  his  way,  but  he  was 
already  inspiring  his  men  to  study  hard.  Moreover,  since 
the  students  of  the  School  were  drawn  to  it,  not  by  outward 
or  conventional  inducements,  they  were  men  of  more  or 
less  independence  in  thought:  many  of  them  had  serious 
intellectual  difficulties,  and  for  these  the  house-father  had 
infinite  patience  and  sympathy. 

Dr.  Stone  was  a  staunch  Evangelical  Churchman,  but 
with  his  friend  Dr.  Dyer  he  stood  for  all  that  was  gentle 
and  loyal.  He  had  a  dread  of  Rome;  this  dread  was 
intensified  because  one  of  his  sons,  to  the  father's  enduring 
grief,  became  a  Roman  Catholic.  He  had  no  sympathy 
for  the  movement  towards  a  Reformed  Episcopal  Church, 


58     THE  CAMBRIDGE  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 

and  he  was  not  afraid  of  the  frank  scholarship  that  was 
daring  to  ask  hazardous  questions. 

Dr.  Francis  Wharton  was  also  an  Evangelical  Church- 
man of  the  generous  type,  moulded  by  the  influence  of 
Bishop  William  White  and  Bishop  Alonzo  Potter.  It  had 
been  his  ambition  to  be  associated  with  a  theological  school ; 
but  when  the  headship  of  the  Cambridge  School  was 
offered  him,  he  showed  his  fineness  by  urging  the  election 
of  Dr.  Stone.  Dr.  Wharton  was  a  man  of  the  world, 
versed  in  law,  literature,  theology,  and  life.  He  taught 
Liturgies,  Church  Polity,  and  Canon  Law;  and  for  a  few 
years  he  taught  also  Homiletics,  Pastoral  Care,  and  Apol- 
ogetics. Both  Dr.  Stone  and  Dr.  Wharton  were  men  of 
dignity  and  personal  charm.  Their  faces  were  singularly 
beautiful  in  their  maturity  and  strength. 

The  other  two  members  of  the  faculty  were  young  men. 
Years  later  Mr.  Allen  said  of  his  colleague:  "I  met  Mr. 
Steenstra  in  1867,  calling  upon  him  at  Newton.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  conservative  men  that  I  ever  knew.  It 
was  like  pulling  teeth,  every  step  that  he  took.  You  have 
hardly  any  conception  of  what  the  steps  were  we  were 
taking.  In  those  early  days  we  were  discussing  very  pain- 
fully the  question  whether  the  date  of  the  received  chronol- 
ogy was  true;  whether  or  not  the  world  was  actually  made 
in  the  year  four  thousand  and  four  and  in  the  spring  of  the 
year;  that  the  evening  and  the  morning  of  March  25  were 
the  first  day.  And  we  were  very  much  exercised  over  the 
question  whether  the  deluge  was  partial  or  complete.  On 
these  questions,  Mr.  Steenstra  was  very  conservative;  and 
we  groped  painfully  through  the  difficulties."  Dr.  Steen- 
stra seemed  afterwards  a  radical  Old  Testament  scholar, 
but  of  late  years  the  tide  has  been  coming  in  so  rapidly 
that  his  once  radical  position  is  now  counted  only  con- 
servative. While  other  schools  were  reaching  the  now 
assured  results  of  Old  Testament  Criticism  through 
panics  and  eccelesiastical  war,  the  Evangelical  authorities 


GREEK  THEOLOGY  59 

at  Cambridge  were  trusting  patiently  in  the  honest  devotion 
of  two  young  men. 

In  Mr.  Allen's  department  of  Ecclesiastical  History  also 
there  was  advance  from  the  old  Evangelical  position.  His 
teaching  was  refreshing  and  awakening,  but  he  was  not 
impressing  the  men  as  he  impressed  later  students.  He  did 
not  adopt  the  full  lecture  system  till  the  early  eighties. 
He  used  a  text  book,  and,  though  he  talked  freely,  there 
was  the  atmosphere  of  a  recitation. 

Mr.  Allen  assisted  Dr.  Stone  in  the  Sunday  services  in 
Cambridge.  But  his  engrossing  work  in  these  first  years, 
as  always  after,  was  to  study  history,  and  to  teach  it.  He 
was  made  a  full  professor,  February  25,  1869.  How  thor- 
oughly he  worked,  a  house  filled  with  note-books  is  eloquent 
witness.  He  not  only  read  widely  —  he  studied,  he  re- 
flected —  and  he  was  constantly  committing  his  acqui- 
sitions to  writing,  not  in  formal  lectures,  but  in  a  mass  of 
"material."  It  was  temperament  as  well  as  conviction 
that  was  leading  him  to  value  the  Greek  Fathers  above 
the  Latin.  The  vein  of  humanism  was  discovered  in  him 
at  Gambier.  Professor  Park  had  given  him  at  Andover 
the  harder  side  of  thought.  But  he  came  back  to  the 
humanism,  and  so  to  the  School  of  Alexandria  in  its  glory. 

St.  John's  Chapel,  at  the  corner  of  Brattle  and  Mason 
streets,  the  gift  of  Robert  Means  Mason,  was  consecrated 
by  Bishop  Eastburn,  November  16,  1869,  as  the  chapel 
of  the  School.  In  1869  Phillips  Brooks  came  to  Trinity 
Church,  Boston;  since  Dr.  Stone  had  long  known  his 
power,  he  at  once  arranged  to  have  Mr.  Brooks  preach  in 
the  Chapel  the  third  Sunday  night  of  each  month.  The 
church  was  thronged  by  Harvard  and  Cambridge,  and  it 
was  here  that  Mr.  Brooks  first  put  his  hand  upon  the  life 
of  Harvard  College.  From  this  beginning  his  association 
with  the  School  became  gradually  intimate.  In  the  early 
seventies  he  felt  the  teaching  power  of  the  School  so  slightly 
that  he  advised  his  brother  John  to  go  to  Andover  and  to 


60     THE  CAMBRIDGE  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 

Philadelphia.  Had  he  then  esteemed  Mr.  Allen  as  he 
esteemed  him  later  he  would  not  have  been  satisfied  to 
allow  his  brother  to  go  through  his  three  years  of  theo- 
logical training  without  being  under  him. 

It  was  during  1869  also  that  Dr.  Stone  moved  to  2,  Phil- 
lips Place,  and  the  Brown  house  on  Brattle  street  was  pur- 
chased for  the  "house-father"  and  his  students.  In  this 
year  Mr.  Allen  became  engaged  to  Dr.  Stone's  daughter, 
Elizabeth  Kent  Stone;  but  the  trustees,  sympathetic  as 
they  were,  felt  the  School  to  be  too  poor  to  add  to  the 
$1250.00  which  was  the  salary  of  the  professor  of  Ecclesias- 
tical History.  So  the  wedding  was  deferred  for  three 
years  —  till  June,   1872. 

He  was  finding  the  atmosphere  of  Cambridge  and  Boston 
stimulating.  He  spoke  always  with  enthusiasm  of  Long- 
fellow, who  was  a  close  neighbour  to  the  School  and  always 
most  hospitable  and  friendly.  He  met  the  poet  one  day 
walking  down  Brattle  street  with  Charles  Dickens,  and  was 
impressed  by  the  novelist's  careworn  face.  He  went  into 
Boston  with  a  student  to  hear  Beecher.  "It  was  very 
interesting,"  he  wrote,  "but  the  lecture  was  a  tissue  of 
sophistries  and  made  no  effect  upon  me  at  all."  "Last 
night,"  he  wrote  to  his  mother,  June  7,  187 1,  "I  attended 
the  young  ministers'  Clerical  Club,  which  meets  at  the 
rooms  of  Phillips  Brooks.  The  subject  of  Cheney  was 
discussed." 

This  summer  of  187 1  he  took  charge  of  The  Christian 
Witness,  and  continued  in  charge  of  it  till  its  sponsor,  J.  S. 
Copley-Greene,  felt  that  he  could  pay  its  bills  no  longer, 
and  it  was  merged  with  The  Protestant  Churchman,  Feb- 
ruary, 1872.  Dr.  John  Cotton  Smith,  the  editor  of  The 
Protestant  Churchman,  asked  Mr.  Allen  to  be  associate  edi- 
tor, but  with  his  teaching  and  preaching  Mr.  Allen  found 
editorial  work  too  onerous,  and  declined.  Still  he  enjoyed 
this  chance  to  express  his  thought.  He  wrote  several 
appreciative  articles  on  Dean  Stanley  as  an  Ecclesiastical 


CHURCH  JOURNALISM  61 

Historian.  He  approved  of  Stanley's  putting  the  empha- 
sis not  upon  institutions  or  opinions,  but  upon  personality, 
but  criticized  him  for  stopping  there,  and  attempting  no 
philosophy  of  history,  never  daring  to  go  beyond  the 
concrete.  He  objected  to  Stanley's  comprehensiveness,  in 
that  it  approached  indifference.  He  admired  him,  but 
with  discrimination. 

In  the  issue  of  July  13,  187 1,  he  attacked  an  article  in 
the  New  York  Nation  on  Cheney  in  his  movement  toward 
what  proved  to  be  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church. 
"Generally,"  he  wrote,  "we  might  criticize  The  Nation's 
attitude  as  being  outside  of  the  Church,  and  consequently 
incapable  of  appreciating  the  complexity  of  an  institution 
which  involves  questions  reaching  back  to  the  origin  of 
Christianity.  Hence  it  happens  that  the  common  sense 
and  'practical'  opinions  on  ecclesiastical  difficulties  are 
not  always  conclusive." 

In  this  connection,  he  wrote:  "The  trouble  with  some  of 
our  Church  contemporaries  is  that  they  will  not  let  God 
do  His  work  in  His  own  way.  They  want  to  do  it  all 
themselves  in  their  own  way.  We  believe  that,  in  all  the 
distractions  of  the  time,  God  is  as  actively  present  in  the 
world  as  in  any  previous  period  of  its  history  .  .  .  The 
tactual  Apostolic  Succession  of  the  Christian  ministry  is 
an  exceedingly  interesting  historical  fact,  and  has  a  certain 
value  of  a  doctrinal  kind  in  attesting  the  continuity  of 
Christian  feeling.  But  when  it  is  exaggerated  into  anything 
beyond  this,  it  reminds  us  of  ancient  forms  of  religion,  like 
Buddhism  or  Judaism,  which  spent  so  much  time  on  the 
husk  that  they  lost  sight  of  the  kernel,  which  it  was  given 
to  preserve.  Too  much  interest  invested  in  externals  is 
one  of  the  fatal  signs  of  decline  in  any  system  of  inward 
power." 

January  18,  1872,  in  an  editorial,  he  spoke  against  those 
who  boasted  their  superior  intelligence  in  rejecting  old 
formulas.     "There  is,"  he  said,  "a  mystery  in  the  great 


62     THE  CAMBRIDGE  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 

unquestioning  heart  of  faith  which  we  had  best  leave  as 
we  find  it.  That  faith  is  the  gift  of  God,  leading  the  blind 
by  a  way  that  they  know  not."  The  next  week  he  spoke 
a  word  in  behalf  of  the  Sacraments.  "Grace,"  he  said, 
"or  the  loving  help  of  God,  does  come  through  channels,  as 
well  as  directly  to  the  soul  .  .  .  Christ  works  through 
other  agencies,  and  He  can  come  to  the  soul  without  the 
need  of  any  outward  means.  This  is  true,  but  it  is  still 
more  true  that  He  does  work  with  all  the  freeness  and 
fulness  of  His  grace,  through  the  special  institutions  of  His 
own  appointment,  in  which  mainly  He  is  to  be  sought  and 
found." 

Between  the  periods  of  study,  teaching,  preaching,  and 
writing,  Mr.  Allen  gave  himself  to  the  care  of  his  mother 
and  sister  who  were  living  at  Rehoboth.  He  could  not 
often  go  down  to  them,  but  he  tried  to  spend  part  of  the 
summer  holiday  with  them,  and  usually  Thanksgiving, 
Christmas,  and  a  day  or  two  after  Easter.  They  sewed  for 
him,  and  he  was  their  connection  with  the  outer  world, 
bringing  or  sending  to  them  the  various  purchases  with 
which  they  commissioned  him.  When  he  was  their  guest 
he  became  painter  and  carpenter,  delighting  to  make  the 
lonely  farmhouse  more  comfortable  and  attractive.  When 
his  sister  wrote  that  she  was  depressed,  he  begged  her  to 
stop  reading  George  Eliot.  Her  books,  he  said,  were  un- 
wholesome, and  would  make  the  most  cheerful  take  de- 
pressing views  of  life. 

Old  friendships  too  were  maintained,  as  new  ones 
were  forming.  He  visited  his  brother  in  Allegheny,  and 
"Posie"  in  Brooklyn.  To  "Willie  Taylor"  he  still  poured 
out  his  soul.  "I  have  come  to  think,"  he  wrote  to  Mr 
Taylor  in  February,  1869,  "that  the  changes  in  store  for 
us  in  the  Church  of  the  Future  are  not  so  great  as  I  once 
imagined  they  would  be.  I  think  the  old  theologies  will 
receive  something  of  an  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  the 
present.     That  they  must  receive.     But  ages  must  roll 


CONSERVATISM  63 

away  before  they  are  lost  to  the  world  substantially,  and  I 
think  they  have  so  much  truth  in  them  they  never  can  be. 
There  are  so  many  precedents  of  this  kind  that  one  cannot 
take  that  enthusiasm  in  present  movements,  which  others 
ignorant  of  these  precedents  might  take.  For  example, 
Clement  of  Alexandria  in  the  third  century  raised  most 
of  our  modern  questions.  And  an  old  fellow  in  the  eighth 
century  thought  that  the  time  would  soon  come  when 
Christianity  would  give  place  to  a  religion  of  pure  human- 
ity. Ten  centuries  —  and  it  has  not  given  way  yet!  The 
study  of  Church  History  must  make  anyone  conservative. 
...  I  have  been  studying  the  Neo-Platonists  this  last 
year.  I  should  like  to  talk  with  you  about  them  .  .  . 
Posie  is  head  over  ears  in  the  Cheney  matter.  I  do  not 
agree  with  him.  The  subject  is  worn  threadbare."  (In 
December,  1874,  Mr.  Postlethwaite  allied  himself  with  the 
Reformed  Episcopal  Church.) 

June  21,  187 1,  the  School  had  its  first  formal  Commence- 
ment in  St.  John's  Chapel,  with  Bishop  Eastburn  presiding. 
In  the  May  following,  ground  was  broken  for  Lawrence 
Hall,  the  dormitory  of  the  School,  given  by  Amos  Adams 
Lawrence,  one  of  the  trustees.  The  anxious  days  of  the 
institution  were  not  past,  but  it  had  proved  its  right  to 
live.  When  Mr.  Allen  went  off  for  his  wedding  journey, 
visiting  Brattleboro  and  Guilford  and  Lake  George,  in  the 
summer  holidays  of  1872,  he  was  reasonably  certain  that 
the  rest  of  his  life  was  to  be  spent  in  doing  his  share  to 
build  up  a  school  which  was  to  have  a  permanent  place  in 
the  life  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    UNKNOWN    TEACHER 

1873  - 1878 

MR.  and  MRS.  ALLEN  began  their  housekeeping 
at  37,  Trowbridge  street.  Mrs.  Allen  was  as  at- 
tractive as  she  was  beautiful.  Full  of  kindness  and  sweet 
intelligence,  she  won  all  who  came  to  know  her.  She  was 
to  her  husband  his  link  with  the  world.  She  did  not 
understand  his  history  and  his  philosophy;  but  she  was 
proud  of  him,  and  went  gaily  about  her  household  duties 
while  he  studied  and  taught.  When  his  day's  work  was 
done  she  spread  the  news  of  the  neighbourhood  before  him. 
She  helped  him  to  entertain  his  students;  while  some 
talked  theology  with  him  in  the  study,  others  talked  the 
lighter  aspects  of  life  with  her  in  the  drawing-room;  and 
he  brought  them  all  at  the  close  of  the  evening  to  her. 
"  We  had  sweetness  and  light,"  a  student  said — "sweetness 
on  one  side  of  the  hall,  light  on  the  other." 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Mr.  Allen  became  chaplain  at 
the  Hospital  for  the  Insane  at  Somerville.  "It  is  dread- 
fully nervous  work,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother,  "and  uses  me 
up  completely.  But  there  is  one  thing  about  it  which  I 
like  —  it  brings  me  into  contact  with  the  world  and  human 
life  in  a  practical  way.  What  I  missed  here  in  Cambridge 
was  some  communication  with  the  world.  Theological 
students  do  not  afford  such  communication:  in  fact,  it  is 
one  of  the  things  they  need.  Thus  being  shut  out  of  the 
world,  I  slide  in  again  through  an  insane  asylum." 

One  of  the  Harvard  faculty  of  those  days  has  told  how 

64 


PRACTICAL  RELIGION  65 

much  he  regretted  that  Mr.  Allen  did  not  oftener  preach  in 
Cambridge.  People  liked  his  sermons,  but  had  a  feeling 
that  he  was  living  in  his  study,  giving  himself  to  those 
who  came  to  him,  but  seeking  none.  It  was  with  a  sort  of 
thrill  that  they  learned,  one  by  one,  that  this  man  who 
seemed  to  shut  the  world  out,  who  indulged  now  and  then 
in  vitriolic  talk  about  the  worthlessness  of  modern  "works," 
who  was  content  to  let  you  think  him  only  a  book- worm, 
was  giving  his  Sundays  to  the  people  he  pitied  most.  "  He  " 
they  said,  "the  sanest  of  men,  preaches  to  the  insane." 
He  was  fond  of  paradoxes,  and  he  was  a  paradox  himself. 
He  always  wrote  his  sermons  for  Somerville:  the  congre- 
gation was  apt  to  make  odd  remarks,  which  were  too 
diverting  for  a  preacher  who  had  a  sense  of  humour,  but 
no  notes. 

In  September  1872,  Bishop  Eastburn  died.  At  the  con- 
vention in  the  following  May,  it  became  clear  that  neither 
of  the  leading  candidates  (Dr.  Henry  C.  Potter  and  Dr. 
de  Koven)  could  be  elected,  and  Dr.  Paddock  was  chosen 
Bishop  of  Massachusetts.  In  the  fall,  Mr.  Allen  wrote  to 
his  mother:  "We  have  had  our  visit  from  Bishop  Paddock 
and  are  pleased  with  him.  We  expect  that  he  will  work 
heartily  with  the  School.  We  have  now  13  students,  the 
largest  number  we  have  had." 

May  21,  1873,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor  of  the  birth  of  his 
son,  Henry  Van  Dyke:  "An  old  servant  came  to  tell  me  in 
a  triumphant  way  that  it  was  a  boy.  I  took  up  my  Prayer 
Book  and  read  with  tears  in  my  eyes  the  Gospel  for  the 
Third  Sunday  after  Easter,  the  Gospel  for  the  week.  .  . 
The  words  seemed  to  come  to  me  like  a  blessed  benediction 
from  the  Divine  Saviour,  and  a  new  meaning,  and  a  deeper, 
came  into  the  words:  'And  ye  now  therefore  have  sorrow: 
but  I  will  see  you  again,  and  your  heart  shall  rejoice,  and 
your  joy  no  man  taketh  from  you.'  " 

In  this  same  letter,  which  covered  the  news  of  many 
months,  he  spoke  of  his  reading.  "I  read  The  Nation 
6 


66  THE  UNKNOWN  TEACHER 

regularly,"  he  said,  "and  could  not  do  without  it.  Some 
things  about  it  I  do  not  like.  It  is  no  soothing-syrup  that 
it  doles  out  weekly.  But  it  is  able  and  illuminating. 
Percy  Browne  has  given  up  reading  it,  because  it  takes  for 
granted  that  the  world  is  going  to  the  dogs,  and  is  carping 
and  critical  and  heartless.  I  told  him  I  thought  it  was  a 
bad  sign  for  a  young  man  to  give  up  reading  it.  Dr.  Stone 
has  dropped  it;  but  that  I  can  understand." 

In  February,  1874,  he  wrote  to  his  mother  that  all  Bos- 
ton and  Cambridge  were  being  stirred  by  the  visit  of 
Charles  Kingsley.  "He  is  now  the  guest  of  Dr.  Wharton, 
and  I  spent  last  evening  at  Dr.  Wharton's  and  heard  him 
talk.  Among  others  came  Longfellow.  Kingsley  was 
nervous  and  irritable,  but  under  the  influence  of  Longfel- 
low's gentleness  and  the  genial  manner  of  the  host,  he 
gradually  mellowed.  Mr.  Longfellow  was  trying  to  in- 
terest him  in  the  subject  of  Roman  ruins,  but  Kingsley 
refused  to  be  interested,  declaring  that  he  had  never  been 
to  Rome:  all  he  cared  to  know  about  Rome  he  could 
gather  from  Longfellow's  poetry.  Mr.  Longfellow  spoke 
of  Uypatia  as  the  finest  historical  novel  ever  written.  On 
Dr.  Wharton's  saying  that  if  Mr.  Kingsley  had  not  been 
in  Rome,  he  had  made  a  thorough  study  of  Alexandria, 
Kingsley  confessed  to  have  gathered  from  books  all  that 
he  knew  of  it.  This  evening  he  came  to  prayers  in  the 
Chapel,  and  after  being  introduced  to  the  congregation, 
he  broke  his  intention  to  be  silent,  making  an  address 
which  those  who  heard  will  never  forget.  He  is  a  tall, 
large-framed  man,  of  a  dark  countenance.  There  is  a 
certain  grace  and  dignity  in  his  manner  and  carriage.  He 
has  the  English  reserve  and  hauteur.  His  voice  is  deep 
and  musical.     He  carries  rather  a  grave,  sad  face." 

In  1874,  Mr.  Reed,  the  founder  of  the  School,  died.  He 
bequeathed  about  a  half  million  of  dollars,  which  was 
to  be  paid  after  Mrs.  Reed's  death.  This  assured  the 
trustees  of  a  prosperous  future,  though  there  were  many 


CHURCH  CONGRESS  67 

years  of  strict  economy  and  many  years  of  constant  giving 
to  the  current  expense  account  from  devoted  friends  be- 
fore the  School  entered  upon  its  inheritance.  "We  are 
feeling  very  hopeful  about  the  institution,"  Mr.  Allen 
wrote  to  his  mother  in  April;  "we  had  been  depressed  a 
good  deal.  Never  in  the  history  of  the  American  Epis- 
copal Church  has  such  a  gift  been  made  before,  and  that 
too,  without  any  condition  whatever.  We  shall  now,  I 
hope,  begin  to  make  ourselves  felt  as  an  institution.  I 
do  not  know  when  we  shall  begin  to  feel  the  change  in 
our  salaries." 

The  next  month  he  wrote  to  his  mother:  "I  have  been 
away  to  a  conference  in  New  Haven,  which  met  to  con- 
sider the  State  of  the  Church.  It  was  interesting  and  im- 
portant. It  was  decided  to  have  a  Church  Congress  at 
the  time  when  the  General  Convention  meets  in  New  York, 
and  do  some  plain  talking  in  hopes  of  moving  the  Con- 
vention. Most  of  those  present  were  Broad  Churchmen, 
but  there  were  some  others,  among  them  Hugh  Miller 
Thompson,  Editor  of  The  Church  Journal.  I  was  much 
pleased  with  him,  and  had  a  good  deal  of  conversation 
with  him." 

After  the  Convention  had  adjourned  he  wrote  to  his 
brother  his  impressions  of  both  the  Congress  and  the  Con- 
vention. "As  to  Church  matters,"  he  said,  "I  am  more 
hopeful  than  you.  The  Congress  is  at  present  the  great 
hope  of  the  Church.  Broad  Church  ideas  are  peculiarly 
fitted  for  the  republican  mind  and  temper,  and  they  took 
at  the  Congress  like  hot  cakes.  But  I  must  admit  that 
there  were  some  bad  signs  about  the  General  Convention, 
notably  what  you  refer  to  —  the  way  in  which  the  bishops 
were  spoken  of  as  having  an  official  insight  into  doctrine. 
One  of  the  most  dangerous  articles  I  have  seen  was  in  The 
Churchman  last  week,  taking  the  ground  that  no  one  not 
inside  the  Church  is  fit  to  criticize  its  movements.  The 
Churchman  is  very  near  committing  the  sin  against  the 


68  THE  UNKNOWN  TEACHER 

Holy  Ghost.  I  have  no  doubt  the  General  Convention 
will  add  life  to  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church.  The 
outlook  is  not  as  good  as  it  might  be;  but  the  place  of  the 
Broad  Churchman  is  in  the  old  Church." 

The  prosperity  of  the  School  was  increased  in  1875  by 
the  building  of  Reed  Hall  to  contain  the  library  and  reci- 
tation rooms.  This  year  Bishop  Paddock  dropped  into 
the  calm  waters  of  the  Theological  School  a  post-card 
which  set  the  waters  to  churning  and  tossing.  The  card, 
written  to  Dean  Stone,  asked  for  a  report  from  the  School 
and  from  St.  John's  Chapel.  The  faculty  met,  then  the 
trustees,  and  it  was  decided  that  neither  the  faculty  nor 
the  trustees  could  make  any  report  to  the  Convention. 
What  would  begin  as  a  courtesy,  might  become  an  obliga- 
tion, and  the  free  school  of  the  prophets  might  be  bound 
to  the  changing  moods  of  a  diocesan  convention:  claim- 
ing the  right  of  a  report,  it  might  later  claim  the  right  to 
control.  Dr.  Stone  suggested  that  the  Board  of  Visitors 
could  report  if  they  chose.  So  the  troubled  waters  sub- 
sided. 

In  the  spring  of  1875  Mr.  Allen  was  elected  a  member 
of  The  Ministers'  Club,  an  organization  of  the  more  prom- 
inent clergy  of  all  Christian  bodies  in  greater  Boston. 
Though  never  occupying  the  place  in  his  affections  filled 
by  the  Clericus,  —  which  was  practically  Phillips  Brooks's 
Club  —  it  was  stimulating.  "I  am  afraid,"  he  wrote  to 
his  mother  in  May,  "  that  they  have  made  a  mistake  in  me. 
They  meet  once  a  month  at  the  different  houses,  and  each 
member  reads  an  essay  in  turn,  which  is  discussed.  Then 
they  have  a  fine  dinner.  Dr.  Wharton  is  a  member,  and 
gave  a  swell  dinner  at  his  house  a  few  months  ago  —  a 
dozen  or  more  courses,  and  several  kinds  of  wine.  Most 
of  the  clergy  are  in  receipt  of  fat  salaries.  But  as  I  am  not, 
I  think  my  best  plan  would  be  to  give  a  dinner  of  herbs  in 
true  Apostolic  fashion.  This  would  be  particularly  appro- 
priate in  one  representing  the  ministry  of  Apostolic  order. 


DORNER  69 

This  age  is  getting  altogether  too  luxurious.  We  need  to 
be  called  back  to  plainness  and  simplicity.  I  don't  sup- 
pose St.  Paul  would  have  joined  such  a  club.  I  wonder 
what  sort  of  dinner  he  would  have  given." 

He  was  not  forgetting  students  who  had  gone  out  of  the 
School.  To  Lee  he  wrote:  "You  need  quiet  and  mental 
repose  to  be  able  to  work  out  your  own  theory  of  things 
satisfactorily  to  yourself.  That  is  what  every  man  abso- 
lutely needs  in  order  to  any  successful  prosecution  of  his 
calling,  —  a  good  working  hypothesis.  When  he  has 
gained  it,  he  can  afford  to  let  it  take  care  of  itself,  and 
follow  his  calling  with  fresh  interest.  We  live,  fortunately 
or  unfortunately,  in  a  time  when  every  thinking  mind  must 
begin  ab  initio,  and  build  up  for  itself;  and  in  the  process 
no  other  mind  can  be  a  substitute  for  his  own,  much  as 
other  minds  may  contribute.  ...  I  am  glad  to  know 
that  you  are  reading  Dorner,  because  it  gives  us  a  common 
ground.  It  is  a  book  which  has  influenced  me  very  much, 
and  wrought  a  great  change  in  my  elemental  conceptions. 
The  Person  of  Christ  is  more  satisfactory  in  the  earlier 
volumes,  perhaps  the  first  three,  than  in  the  later.  Dor- 
ner's  History  of  Protestant  Theology  is  to  me  invaluable 
as  an  explanation  of  thorough  justification  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  If  you  have  not  read  it,  you  have  a  great 
treat  before  you.  .  .  .  The  Club  goes  on.  Brooks  read 
a  fine  essay  on  Heresy." 

In  September,  1875,  Dr.  Stone  wrote  to  his  friend  Dr.  Dyer 
to  ask  questions  about  the  Rev.  George  Zabriskie  Gray: 
"Would  he  do  more  than  I  have  done  in  attracting  general 
confidence  in  our  School?  In  answering  this  last  query 
don't  be  tender  on  my  account:  I  am  old  and  tough  and 
can  bear  without  wincing  any  thing  that  you  will  say." 
The  answer  was  so  encouraging  that  Mr.  Gray  was  called 
to  a  professorship,  with  the  office  of  Dean,  succeeding  Dr. 
Stone,  who  felt  himself  too  old  to  administer  the  affairs  of 
the  School.     Dr.  Gray  began  his  work  in  Cambridge  in 


7o  THE  UNKNOWN  TEACHER 

1876,  and  won  the  affection  of  faculty  and  students.  More- 
over, having  been  in  the  parochial  ministry,  he  empha- 
sized the  pastoral  side  of  St.  John's  Chapel.  Though  still 
technically  only  a  collegiate  chapel,  it  became  under  him 
much  like  a  parish. 

Meantime,  October  5,  1875,  Mr.  Allen's  second  son  was 
born,  and  named  John  Stone  for  his  grandfather,  who 
proudly  declared  him  the  finest  child  he  had  ever  seen. 
"You  inform  me,"  wrote  Percy  Browne,  "of  your  new 
happiness  in  such  a  stately  and  ceremonious  manner  that 
I  am  not  sure  whether  I  ought  to  congratulate  you.  Still 
I  do;  though  you  don't  deserve  it.  The  first  baby  is  the 
poetry,  the  second  the  prose  of  the  family,  so  that  it  would 
be  ridiculous  to  expect  you  to  gush:  all  your  friends,  of 
course,  will  say  that  you  are  disappointed  because  it  wasn't 
a  girl.   .  .  . 

"I  ought  to  congratulate  you  also  on  a  child  of  your 
brain  —  I  mean  the  essay  last  night.  It  struck  me  as 
being  far  ahead  of  anything  I  have  heard  from  you  yet, 
and  I  think  you  must  have  noticed  the  unusual  attention 
paid  by  the  Club.  It  was  long,  but  to  me,  and  I  think  to 
all,  profoundly  interesting.  Huntington  was  with  me  last 
night,  and  thought  the  essay  and  discussion  the  most 
interesting  we  have  had." 

To  Mr.  Taylor  he  wrote,  in  January,  1876:  "I  agree  with 
you  in  regard  to  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church.  It  is 
too  late  in  the  day  to  hope  to  remedy  the  evils  in  the  Chris- 
tian body  by  a  new  Church,  whether  Old  Catholic  or  Re- 
formed Episcopal.  There  will  be  those  on  the  one  side 
who  will  continue  to  expect  great  things  from  the  Bonn 
Conference,  and  a  great  many  will  look  with  hope  on  this 
new  bantling,  which  calls  itself  Reformed  Episcopal.  I 
have  no  faith  in  either.  We  don't  want  new  Churches, 
but  the  regeneration  of  the  old.  What  we  really  need  is  a 
great  prophet  who  can  get  the  world's  ear,  and  reach  its 
conscience,  and  who  will  tell  us  all  what  Christianity  is 


FABER'S  HYMNS  71 

indeed.  However,  I  don't  expect  to  see  any  great  change 
in  my  day.  It  takes  centuries  to  do  these  things  that  have 
to  be  done,  and  not  mere  decades.  The  old  Jewish  proph- 
ets began  to  see  the  corruptions  of  the  popular  religion  five 
hundred  years  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  It  took  at 
least  the  same  time  for  Paganism  to  disappear  when 
Christianity  came  into  the  Roman  Empire.  It  took  three 
hundred  years  to  get  ready  for  the  Reformation  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  On  the  whole  it  is  a  good  thing  that 
great  changes  are  not  wrought  in  a  day.  The  Reformed 
Episcopal  Church  and  the  Old  Catholic  Church  are  sig- 
nificant as  signs  of  the  times. 

"I  want  to  make  you  a  present,  and  have  thought  of 
sending  you  Faber's  Hymns,  partly  for  the  beauty  of  the 
book,  but  mainly  because  I  got  it  for  myself,  and  have 
found  the  hymns  a  little  the  best  of  anything  I  have  ever 
read.  The  hymns  on  God,  in  particular,  I  admire.  They 
move  me  more  than  other  religious  poetry.  I  do  not  agree 
with  them  exactly:  they  represent  a  phase  of  religious 
experience  which  with  me  has  yielded  to  another,  and  I 
think,  a  higher;  but  they  do  me  good  —  they  elevate,  and 
the  poetry  is  exquisite.  I  could  almost  wish  to  be  a  child 
again,  so  as  to  fit  into  the  mood  which  would  make  these 
utterances  its  own.  But  such  wishes  are  vain.  As  Emer- 
erson  says  —  he  is  impressed  by  a  bishop,  but  he  would 
not  be  one." 

In  1877,  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  was  consecrated;  and 
Moody  and  Sankey  held  a  revival.  Mr.  Allen  felt  that  the 
dignified  service  symbolizing  the  fusion  of  many  gifts  in  a 
magnificent  church  was  a  greater  spiritual  event  than  the 
rather  boisterous  revival,  which  of  course  was  more  con- 
spicuous to  the  general  public.  He  delayed  going  to  any 
of  the  Moody  services.  "But  I  shall  go,"  he  wrote  to  his 
mother,  "though  I  do  not  feel  much  interest  in  the  move- 
ment. I  should  not  oppose  it,  but  the  excitement  I  do  not 
like.    In  some  respects,  Moody  and  Sankey  are  an  improve- 


72  THE  UNKNOWN  TEACHER 

merit  upon  the  earlier  revivalists;  there  is  less  of  terrorism 
in  their  preaching,  and  they  give  greater  prominence  to 
the  ethical  element  in  religion.  I  hope  that  they  won't 
try  to  get  hold  of  the  children  in  this  way.  That  I  should 
regard  as  disastrous."  Later  he  wrote:  "I  have  been  to 
hear  Moody  and  Sankey.  Mr.  Moody  has  nothing  sui 
generis  about  him,  though  he  is  a  good  speaker.  I  did  not 
like  his  style,  but  in  that  style  he  is  the  best  speaker  I 
have  heard.  ...    It  was  an  impressive  sight." 

In  July,  1877,  Mr.  Allen  sailed  for  Europe.  The  journey 
outwardly  was  the  conventional  first  journey,  but  the 
student  of  Church  History  was  everywhere  living  the  past 
in  the  places  he  was  seeing.  He  worked  hard  at  seeing 
all  each  town  could  show. 

"I  find  myself  lamenting  dear  little  Jackie,"  he  wrote 
from  London,  "  and  missing  his  sweet  babyhood.  I  think 
he  must  know  unconsciously  that  some  love  has  gone  out 
of  his  life.  I  saw  in  the  National  Gallery  a  picture  by 
Rubens  of  Christ  Blessing  Little  Children,  which  struck 
me  very  much.  The  child  is  a  very  ordinary  one  —  none 
of  your  ideal  children  —  and  he  is  wistfully  looking  away 
from  the  Saviour  in  the  direction  of  something  that  inter- 
ests him,  and  the  Saviour  seems  to  detain  him  for  a  moment 
from  his  play  in  order  to  give  His  blessing.  Well,  it 
seems  to  me  there  was  a  lesson  there  for  us  all.  The 
blessings  come  unconsciously,  sometimes  against  our  wills. 
A  lesson  too  about  expecting  too  much  from  children." 

His  first  Sunday  morning  in  London  he  went  to  the 
service  at  the  Abbey,  where  he  heard  Stanley.  "It  was 
a  fine  sermon,"  he  wrote,  July  29.  "I  stayed  to  the  Com- 
munion, and  then  I  went  up  and  introduced  myself  to  the 
Dean.  I  was  very  much  drawn  to  him.  He  guided  me 
through  the  Abbey  and  to  some  parts  to  which  the  public 
is  not  admitted,  and  he  told  me  many  curious  things.  He 
pointed  out  the  busts  of  Keble,  Kingsley,  and  Maurice; 
then  the  grave  of  Lady  Augusta.     He  talked  a  good  deal 


ENGLISH  PREACHERS  73 

about  her:  it  was  very  touching  to  hear  him.  Probably 
he  would  not  have  talked  so  freely  to  any  one  but  a  for- 
eigner. He  showed  me  some  rich  curtains,  the  last  thing 
she  made  for  the  Abbey.  It  stirred  my  sympathies  to 
have  it  all  pointed  out  to  me  by  him.  He  is  very  quick 
and  active,  but  delicate  looking.  He  invited  me  to  dine 
with  him  at  five,  but  I  declined.  We  talked  a  little  about 
America.  He  admired  Brooks.  He  kept  saying,  '  Quite 
so,'  to  everything  I  said." 

"This  afternoon,"  he  wrote  the  next  Sunday,  "I  heard 
Canon  Liddon  at  St.  Paul's.  He  did  not  come  up  to  my 
expectations.  His  voice  was  very  high  and  rather  monot- 
onous, with  a  certain  sentimental  cadence.  I  observed 
the  congregation  closely  but  I  could  not  see  that  he  held 
their  attention.  It  was  an  immense  congregation,  com- 
pletely filling  the  space  under  the  dome,  part  of  the  nave 
beyond,  and  both  transepts.  A  good  many  left  before  the 
sermon.  It  was  trite,  but  he  spoke  with  great  force  and 
earnestness.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  the  preacher  was 
theologically  blind  in  one  eye.  He  dwelt  upon  the  ritual  as 
ordained  by  God,  but  did  not  mention  how  in  other  places 
God  Himself  denounced  it  through  the  prophets  as  a  thing 
He  was  weary  of.  I  should  say  that  as  a  preacher  he  had 
enthusiasm  and  fire,  and  might  be  eloquent,  but  he  doesn't 
come  up  to  the  best  standards  of  American  preaching. 
He  is  not  equal  to  Brooks.  ...  At  seven  I  went  to 
hear  Dr.  Vaughan,  Master  of  the  Temple,  at  St.  Andrew's, 
Holborn.  He  has  a  pleasant  voice,  but  weak,  and  he 
seemed  to  have  trouble  with  it.  He  made  one  start,  and 
his  voice  failed  him,  and  he  had  to  do  it  over.  I  enjoyed 
listening  to  him.  He  held  the  large  congregation  well. 
But  it  was  all  very  quiet:  there  was  none  of  the  excitement 
and  rush  of  Brooks,  no  such  hanging  on  the  lips  of  the 
preacher.  I  count  myself  fortunate  in  having  heard  in 
these  two  Sundays  the  three  best  preachers  in  England: 
Stanley,  Liddon,  and  Vaughan.     The  Non-conformists  I 


74  THE  UNKNOWN  TEACHER 

do  not  count.     Spurgeon  I  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to 
hear,  and  I  did  not  inquire  whether  he  was  preaching." 

In  Paris  he  went  loyally  to  Holy  Trinity,  the  American 
church.  "It  gave  me  a  sense  of  being  at  home,"  he  wrote; 
"we  were  bearing  witness  to  the  sacredness  of  our  nation- 
ality in  a  foreign  land."  The  beauty  of  Paris  laid  hold  of 
him.  "Had  St.  John,"  he  said,  "lived  in  Paris,  he  would 
have  found  inspiration  for  his  vision  of  heaven."  But  the 
horror  of  much  in  French  history  appalled  him:  "French- 
men must  be  made  to  forget  rather  than  to  remember," 
he  said  as  he  looked  at  the  monuments.  Speaking  of 
Napoleon's  splendid  tomb,  he  added:  "There  is  one  side 
of  the  story  which  the  French  conceal;  namely,  the  part  of 
Wellington  and  St.  Helena.  You  must  go  into  the  dark 
crypt  of  St.  Paul's  for  that  part  of  the  story.  England 
never  would  have  deified  a  man  who  made  such  a  failure 
in  the  end.  In  England  the  Nation  is  always  greater  than 
its  distinguished  men;  in  France  Napoleon  seems  greater 
than  the  Nation." 

In  Geneva  it  swept  over  him  what  a  large  part,  through 
Calvin,  France  played  in  the  Reformation  in  spite  of  itself. 
Coming  home  from  Calvin's  house  he  was  amazed  to  run 
upon  Phillips  Brooks,  and  spent  the  evening  with  him, 
talking  of  Servetus  and  Calvin  and  Boston  and  Cambridge. 

After  Italy  and  Germany,  he  was  again  in  England.  He 
heard  sermons  from  Llewellyn  Davies,  Canon  Lightfoot 
(whom  he  thought  a  better  preacher  than  Liddon,  though 
inferior  in  voice),  and  Manning.  "Manning,"  he  wrote, 
"looked  majestic  in  his  Cardinal's  dress  and  hat  of  scarlet. 
I  don't  wonder  that  he  draws  a  crowd.  The  sermon  was 
very  able  in  its  way  —  though  I  did  not  like  the  way.  It 
was  subtle,  cool,  and  self-possessed.  There  was  no  trace 
of  his  Anglican  training." 

The  Marathon  brought  him  into  Boston,  October  i, 
rested,  refreshed,  grateful.  His  imagination  grasped  more 
firmly  the  history  he  was  set  to  teach. 


GENERAL  CONVENTION  OF  1877  75 

The  new  year  at  the  Theological  School  had  already 
begun  when  he  reached  Cambridge,  with  ten  new  students. 
To  his  school  work,  and  his  services  at  the  Somerville 
Asylum,  he  now  added  the  charge  of  the  mission  at  East 
Cambridge,  known  as  the  Church  of  the  Ascension.  With 
all  these  duties  on  his  hands,  it  is  not  strange  that  he  found 
it  hard  to  go  to  the  General  Convention,  which  met  in 
Boston  in  the  fall  of  1877.  "De  Koven,"  he  wrote  to  his 
mother,  "has  been  giving  his  reasons  for  changing  the  name 
of  the  Church,  and  does  not  see  why  the  'Lows'  should 
make  any  opposition,  when  they  have  already  prefixed 
the  new  and  more  desirable  name  to  their  missionary 
association,  which  is  known  as  the  American  Church 
Missionary  Society.  It  is  a  very  good  hit,  to  say  the  least 
of  it." 

The  early  summer  of  1878  was  a  tragic  period  at  6,  Ash 
street  (which  was  Mr.  Allen's  home  from  1876  to  1882). 
The  little  daughter,  so  longed  for,  came,  but  passed  almost 
immediately,  and  Mrs.  Allen  was  close  to  death.  "For  a 
week,"  Mr.  Allen  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor,  "she  lay  uncon- 
scious; then  the  doctor  gave  her  up,  and  we  all  met  in  her 
room  to  take,  as  we  supposed,  our  farewell  to  her,  expect- 
ing the  end  at  any  moment.  But  she  rallied,  when  life 
was  almost  gone,  and  now  she  is  on  the  highroad  to  a  com- 
plete recovery.  It  was  a  dreadful  tragedy  to  go  through; 
but,  as  I  write  about  it  now,  it  seems  as  though  it  were  a 
long  time  ago,  and  more  like  a  dream  than  reality.  It  has 
been  a  year  filled  with  reminders  of  death.  The  death  of 
Ed.  Stanton  and  Murray  Davis  touched  me  very  much, 
particularly  Stanton's." 

In  another  letter  to  Mr.  Taylor  he  confessed  that  he 
still  read  The  Nation.  "It  has  not  the  charm  that  it  had 
during  the  year  before  the  election,  but  it  commends  itself 
to  my  judgment  as  doing  a  great  work  for  the  country. 
Some  of  those  who  ought  to  read  it  are  giving  it  up, 
because  they  cannot  afford  to  be  disturbed  by  its  weekly 


76  THE  UNKNOWN  TEACHER 

growls  and  cynicism.  But  beneath  its  sarcasms  there  lies 
a  deep,  sincere,  and  noble  purpose.  When  I  want  the  best 
illustration  of  the  old  Hebrew  prophets,  in  modern  times, 
I  think  of  The  Nation:' 

Commencement  Day  was  June  19,  and  Bishop  Hunting- 
ton was  the  preacher.  "He  spoke,"  wrote  Mr.  Allen,  "of 
two  theories  of  the  ministry:  one  that  it  comes  from 
above  downward;  the  other  that  it  comes  from  below 
upward.  I  make  the  criticism  that  in  spiritual  things, 
speaking  precisely,  there  is  no  such  distinction:  all  that 
is  good  comes  from  God,  the  Indweller,  the  Immanent." 

Under  July  1,  he  made  this  record:  "I  found  a  letter  on 
coming  down  to  breakfast,  announcing  that  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Divinity  had  been  conferred  upon  me  by  Kenyon 
College.  I  was  quite  astounded.  I  could  not  but  feel 
kindly  to  Kenyon  for  doing  a  kind  act  to  an  old  graduate, 
little  as  I  esteem  degrees,  or  like  making  these  distinctions 
among  the  clergy.  If  it  were  a  scholastic  thing,  given  on 
examination,  I  should  feel  differently.  I  must  accept  it, 
I  suppose,  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  it  is  given.  But 
Steenstra  ought  to  have  the  same  compliment,  and  Henry 
still  more.  I  think  I  shall  not  use  the  title  till  Steenstra 
gets  one." 

He  noted  in  his  journal  some  of  the  books  he  was  read- 
ing this  summer.  Mozley's  Ruling  Ideas  he  liked:  "His 
drawing  of  Augustine  is  good:  he  corrects  the  misconcep- 
tion that  he  was  deep.  He  was  popular  and  had  a  wonder- 
ful power  of  gauging  the  popular  mind,  of  just  striking  it. 
Otherwise  he  would  not  have  been  great."  Dixon's  His- 
tory of  the  Church  of  England  Mr.  Allen  found  interesting. 
"Dixon  thinks  the  whole  course  of  things  has  been  wrong 
since  the  Reformation  began,  and  a  great  mistake  it  all 
seems  to  have  been.  The  question,  'Where  is  God,  and 
what  is  His  connection  with  the  course  of  events  ? '  never 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  him.  The  whole  book  is  a 
commentary  on  Emerson's  expression,  'Poor  God.'     God 


HARD  WORK  77 

had  no  one  to  help  Him,  so  things  went  to  the  dogs  in  the 
matter  of  the  Church  and  clergy." 

The  impression  of  these  years  in  the  middle  seventies  is 
one  of  patient,  unceasing  toil.  "Whatever  I  may  be,"  he 
said  to  Mr.  Taylor,  "I  am  not  an  idle  clergyman.  In 
addition  to  my  professorship,  which  takes  twelve  hours 
every  week,  I  hold  two  other  'livings':  one  the  chaplaincy 
of  the  Asylum  at  Somerville,  the  other  the  incipient  Church 
at  East  Cambridge.  If  it  were  not  for  the  renewed  health 
which  Europe  gave,  I  should  not  be  equal  to  the  work." 


CHAPTER  VII 

BECOMING    KNOWN 

1879-1881 

NEWMAN  fixed  upon  a  certain  year  when  he  felt  that 
he  was  becoming  known.  There  is  no  trace  of 
such  a  self-conscious  glow  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Allen,  but  if 
one  were  to  fix  upon  such  a  year  when  he  might  have 
boasted  that  he  was  becoming  known,  it  is  the  year  1879. 
He  had  won  the  affection  and  admiration  of  small  classes 
of  students;  he  was  gaining  the  respect  of  thoughtful  and 
mature  men  who  heard  his  papers  at  small  clubs.  But  in 
1879,  as  Newman  would  say,  he  came  out  of  his  shell.  A 
considerable  number  of  people  began  to  feel  his  power. 

On  a  day  in  February  at  St.  Paul's  Church,  he  gave  his  first 
public  lecture  in  Boston.  His  subject  was  "  The  Conquest  of 
the  Church  by  the  Papacy."  "My  lecture  on  the  Papacy," 
he  wrote  his  mother,  "came  off  last  Tuesday,  as  you  will 
see  on  the  first  page  of  Wednesday's  Transcript.  There 
was  a  good  congregation  and  though  my  lecture  occupied 
an  hour  and  fifteen  minutes,  no  one  went  out.  They 
stayed  and  listened.  I  cantered  through  it  with  immense 
rapidity.  It  would  have  taken  two  hours  if  read  at  an 
ordinary  pace.  I  am  to  deliver  another  lecture  in  Boston 
on  the  twenty-fourth  on  '  Monasticism :  its  Lights  and 
Shades.'  These  extra  efforts  are  using  up  time  and 
strength." 

Immediately  there  came  the  request,  informally  presented 
through  Percy  Browne,  that  he  deliver  five  public  lectures 
in  Boston  on  any  topic  connected  with  the  History  of  the 

78 


BOSTON  LECTURES  79 

Christian  Church.  In  May  this  request  was  made  formal 
and  signed  by  Bishop  Paddock,  Phillips  Brooks,  Alexander 
H.  Vinton,  and  other  chief  clergymen  of  Boston.  Tickets 
were  sold  at  a  dollar  for  the  course  of  five,  and  since  the 
lectures  were  to  be  given  in  Trinity  Chapel,  they  were 
limited  to  500,  the  capacity  of  the  Chapel.  The  tickets 
were  all  sold  long  before  the  lectures  were  given,  owing 
partly  to  the  emphatic  notices  given  out  by  the  rectors  of 
the  various  parishes  and  the  favourable  words  of  the  news- 
papers. The  lectures  were  anticipated  almost  with  excite- 
ment. This  expectation  was  a  keen  incentive  to  Mr. 
Allen,  and  the  lectures  were  upon  his  mind  all  through  1879. 
He  seems  never  to  have  put  off  upon  these  larger  audiences, 
at  any  time  in  his  life,  the  mere  repetition  of  what  he  had 
been  giving  his  classes.  The  material  was  recast  in  a  new 
form,  and  the  wider  opportunities  made  him  grow. 

Telling  his  mother  of  these  proposed  lectures,  he  added: 
"I  have  also  received  an  invitation  from  the  Secretary  of 
the  Church  Congress  to  read  a  paper  at  the  next  meeting, 
in  Albany,  in  October.  But  I  think  I  must  decline.  My 
subject  was  to  be  'The  Relations  of  Communism  to  the 
Republic' " 

He  did  not  subordinate  the  work  at  the  School  to  these 
new  undertakings.  In  these  years  he  was  wont  to  spend 
many  evenings  with  this  or  that  student  in  his  room, 
especially  when  he  suspected  that  the  student  was  in  per- 
plexity or  doubt.  Many  men  have  told  how  of  a  winter 
evening  they  heard  a  knock  at  the  door,  and  the  professor 
of  history  came  in,  as  if  by  God's  bidding,  to  straighten 
out  their  faith  and  to  give  them  a  new  start  in  life.  The 
fact  that  the  School  was  suspected  of  heterodoxy  in  some 
quarters  made  men  who  were  not  quite  sure  of  their  ortho- 
doxy willing  to  come,  because  they  someway  believed  help 
and  sympathy  would  be  given  them.  When  the  students 
called  upon  him  in  his  study,  they  enjoyed  the  evening, 
but  it  was  a  part  of  education ;  for  he  records  in  his  jour- 


80  BECOMING  KNOWN 

nal  such  fragments  as  this:  "Mr.  Saltonstall  called  in  the 
evening;  we  talked  on  Revelation  and  the  Trinity." 

The  summer  of  1879  he  took  Mrs.  Allen  and  the  children 
to  Plymouth,  then  to  New  Hampshire;  and  he  remained 
for  the  most  part  in  Cambridge  to  work  upon  his  Boston 
lectures.  "I  have  a  most  devoted  pussy,"  he  told  his 
mother,  "  and  she  is  my  companion.  She  insists  on  sitting 
down  on  the  table  where  I  am  writing,  or  else  getting  up 
on  my  shoulder  and  watching  me,  and  then  going  to  sleep 
there.     She  has  blotted  this  letter  a  little." 

The  intimacy  with  Phillips  Brooks  was  deepening.  After 
a  Cambridge  sermon  Mr.  Brooks  was  wont  to  go  to  Mr. 
Allen's  for  a  friendly  talk,  and  a  call  on  Mr.  Brooks  was 
frequently  the  reason  for  an  afternoon  walk  to  Boston. 
"To-day,"  he  wrote  in  November,  "I  took  little  Jackie 
into  Boston  to  call  on  the  Rector  of  Trinity.  Brooks  was 
much  pleased  with  him  and  entertained  him  beautifully. 
And  Jackie  was  quite  at  home :  he  stood  up  and  sang  two 
verses  of  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  War  in  the  most 
delightful  way." 

In  1879  Mr.  John  Appleton  Burnham  built  the  Refectory, 
thus  adding  one  more  building  to  the  attractive  School  group. 
Mr.  Mason,  who  gave  the  Chapel,  died  this  year,  and  left 
a  generous  bequest  to  the  School. 

During  January,  1880,  Mr.  Allen  delivered  five  lectures 
in  Boston:  I.  The  Church  and  the  World  in  Conflict; 
II.  Union  of  the  Church  with  the  Roman  State;  III. 
The  See  of  Rome  and  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne;  IV. 
The  Period  of  Papal  Supremacy;  V.  The  Dawn  of  a  New 
Day.  He  sent  bulletins  of  the  lectures  to  Rehoboth  with 
the  frankness  which  he  knew  his  mother  would  desire. 
"The  first  lecture,"  he  said,  "was  yesterday  at  four. 
Trinity  Chapel  was  crowded,  and  many  had  to  go  away. 
It  was  the  finest  audience  I  ever  addressed."  January  27, 
he  wrote  with  evident  relief:  "I  came  up  to  the  scratch 
yesterday  for  the  fourth  time.     The  audience  showed  no 


ELISHA  MULFORD  81 

signs  of  flagging.  The  bishop  has  been  present  at  every 
lecture,  and,  I  hope,  finds  the  teaching  to  his  mind." 
February  3,  he  reported  the  end:  "It  has  been  a  long  hard 
pull  for  six  weeks.  The  children  seem  to  think  it  a  great 
occasion  to  be  done  with  the  lectures,  for  they  have  been 
shut  out  of  the  study,  and  now  they  think  they  have  a 
right  to  come  back." 

In  February,  1 881,  he  wrote:  "I  have  struck  up  quite  an 
intimacy  with  Rev.  Dr.  Elisha  Mulford,  who  has  recently 
come  to  Cambridge  to  live.  He  is  a  distinguished  author 
and  philosophical  lecturer.  He  was  here  last  night  till 
twelve.  He  is  very  deaf  and  I  have  to  talk  with  him 
through  an  ear  trumpet.  Margaret  was  awakened  by  his 
departure,  and  thought  it  burglars.  We  talked  of  Dr. 
Washburn,  Blake,  Shelley,  Whitman,  et  c7." 

This  friendship  with  Dr.  Mulford  was  a  factor  in  Mr. 
Allen's  life.  The  old  heroes  had  been  Coleridge  and  Mau- 
rice; in  Brooks  and  Mulford  he  now  found  living  heroes, 
to  whom  he  gave  not  only  friendship,  but  intellectual 
respect.  In  a  way  he  followed  them,  though  he  was  not 
aware  that  they  also  were  following  him.  His  modesty 
and  shyness  were  constitutional,  and  it  was  a  comfort  to 
him  to  find  men  leading  by  confident  words.  Elisha  Mul- 
ford was  a  graduate  of  Yale;  he  had  entered  the  ministry, 
but  his  increasing  deafness  prevented  ordinary  parish  work. 
He  therefore  retired  to  a  farm  with  Aristotle  and  Hegel. 
The  world  was  more  and  more  shut  out,  and  daily  he 
delved  deeper  into  the  secret  of  these  men.  He  was 
strikingly  handsome,  his  face  telling  a  story  of  fine  living 
and  profound  thought.  Mr.  Allen  reverenced  him  from 
the  start,  and  the  friendship  grew  rapidly.  He  would  drop 
into  Mr.  Allen's  study  generally  about  eleven  at  night,  and 
there  he  would  sit  in  silence  for  a  moment.  Then  Mr. 
Allen  would  throw  into  the  speaking-trumpet  a  word  that 
would  stir  him  up.  Thereupon  Mulford  would  launch 
forth  on  high  talk,  not  at  all  concerned  because  no  one 
7 


82  BECOMING  KNOWN 

troubled  to  talk  back.  Mr.  Horace  E.  Scudder,  of  the  Riv- 
erside Press,  used  to  tell  that  Mulford  was  indignant 
with  the  publishers  because  they  did  not  keep  the  news- 
stands at  railway  stations  supplied  with  his  abstruse  and 
difficult  book  on  The  Republic  of  God :  he  felt  sure  that  if 
people  had  a  chance  to  get  at  it,  it  would  have  enormous 
influence  on  the  fall  election.  But  when  asked  through 
the  trumpet  what  he  meant  by  a  certain  passage  in  his 
book,  he  replied  that  he  really  didn't  know:  he  had  not 
read  it  since  it  was  printed. 

"I  went  to  Narragansett  to  the  Clericus,"  Mr.  Allen 
said  in  June,  "where  were  present  Bishop  Clark,  Brooks, 
Richards,  Locke,  Percy  Browne,  Learoyd,  Mulford,  Newton, 
Dr.  Wharton  (the  host),  Fred  Allen,  and  Cunningham.  A 
heavy  lunch  at  Dr.  Wharton's  was  followed  by  a  paper  by 
Dr.  Wharton  on  'Legal  Analogies  in  Religion.'  Dr.  Mul- 
ford opened  up  well.  The  next  morning  I  read  a  paper  at 
Newton's  house  on  'English  Deism  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century.'  Then  an  hour  out  upon  the  rocks,  then  lunch, 
and  home." 

Later  he  wrote:  "I  have  been  to-day  to  hear  Wendell 
Phillips's  <£BK  oration.  It  was  a  grand  oration,  one  of  the 
finest  things  I  ever  heard  in  my  life."  He  often  spoke  to 
his  students  in  after  years  of  this  oration  as  a  most  remark- 
able example  of  persuasion.  The  orator  began  with  an 
audience  out  of  sorts  with  his  enthusiasms,  cold,  even 
hostile.  Before  the  close,  he  had  won  them  all:  he  had 
cast  his  spell  upon  them. 

To  his  brother  he  wrote  about  Mulford:  "I  was  glad  to 
receive  your  elaborate  criticism  upon  Mulford 's  Republic. 
He  is  living  in  Cambridge  and  we  have  become  quite  inti- 
mate. He  spends  a  great  many  hours  in  my  study  dis- 
cussing theology,  and  I  went  over  a  great  part  of  his  book 
with  him  before  it  came  out.  What  you  say  about  his 
being  a  mystic  interests  me.  I  long  since  recognized  that 
I  was  one.     So  is  he.     But   then  I  recognize  that  the 


A  MYSTIC  83 

name  mystic  does  not  convey  any  exact  description  of  a 
thinker,  as  rationalist  does.  Moreover  it  is  applied  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  formal  orthodoxy,  to  which  its  methods 
and  conclusions  are  necessarily  inexplicable.  Also  while 
Philo  and  others  are  mystics,  yet  there  are  mystics  and 
mystics,  and  not  even  their  method  is  common,  much  less 
their  results.  But  they  are  all  alike  in  one  respect;  namely, 
that  they  do  not  believe  that  the  literal  historical  statement 
is  the  measure  of  truth,  any  more  than  the  formal  report  of 
a  battle  in  dry  military  records  is  the  measure  of  all  it 
implied.  Shakespeare  is  truer  as  an  historian  than  any  of 
the  mediaeval  chroniclers,  who  gave  the  bare  record  of 
the  events  which  he  has  worked  up  in  his  plays,  or  rather 
he  is  the  truest  interpreter  of  the  history.  For  the  literal 
statement  needs  an  interpreter.  So  I  think,  on  the  whole, 
that  while  the  rationalist  has  a  work  to  do,  which  is 
important,  there  is  work  which  he  cannot  do  by  the  very 
limitations  of  his  position.  Further  than  this  I  think  any 
effort  to  define  mysticism  ends  in  failure,  and  I  generally 
know  what  any  writer  is  worth  when  he  attempts  its 
definition. 

"I  agree  with  you  in  your  general  praise  of  the  book, 
and  also  as  to  the  style  —  which  is  barbarous.  It  is  most 
surprising  that  a  man  with  his  fine  literary  culture  should 
perpetrate  such  a  monstrosity.  But  despite  all  this  it  is 
a  great  book  and  is  sure  to  be  read.  Mulford  has  been 
working  away  at  it  for  fifteen  years.  Although  I  admire 
the  book  and  the  author,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  there 
are  '  some  unexplained  remainders '  —  as  Joe  Cook  calls 
them  —  in  Mulford's  mind.  But  you  cannot  take  the 
measure  of  such  a  man  easily  or  rapidly. 

"Our  Commencement  was  yesterday  with  Morgan  Dix 
as  preacher.  There  was  no  triumphant  hopefulness  about 
the  sermon,  rather  a  sweet  melancholy.  To  him  the  world 
was  a  godless  place:  he  and  his  friends  were  on  some 
vessel  anchored  in  the  harbour.     It  was  a  cloudy  sky,  por- 


84  BECOMING  KNOWN 

tending  storms,  and  all  small  craft  would  be  driven  out  to 
sea  in  the  gale  —  but  it  was  probable  that  the  old  ship 
would  hold  to  her  moorings." 

It  was  in  1881  that  Dr.  Bartol,  standing  with  Phillips 
Brooks  in  the  new  Trinity,  had  looked  up  to  the  Apostles' 
Creed  on  the  wall,  and  had  said,  "Of  course,  Brooks,  you 
don't  believe  that!"  Mr.  Brooks's  indignation  found 
expression  at  the  time  and  also  afterwards  as  he  told  the 
incident  to  his  friends.  He  and  Mr.  Allen  had  talked  of 
it,  and  they  were  led  to  speak  of  the  whole  subject  of  creeds. 
After  one  of  these  conversations  Mr.  Allen  wrote  to  his 
friend,  seeking  to  make  his  own  position  clear. 

"I  look  upon  the  recitation  of  the  Creed,"  he  said,  "as 
primarily  a  religious  act,  and  therefore  as  calling  for  some- 
thing more  than  intellectual  veracity.  The  words  'I 
believe'  do  not  express  the  results  of  a  mental  process  by 
which  the  articles  of  the  Creed  having  been  examined  are 
made  to  appear  credible  or  demonstrably  true,  but  they 
stand  for  what  is  sometimes  called  '  an  act  of  faith.'  They 
include  the  devotion  of  the  heart,  the  consecration  of  the 
will.  They  include  such  expressions  as  '  I  love  and  adore, ' 
'I  vow  obedience,'  'I  consecrate  myself  to.'  The  words  in 
the  Communion  Office,  'Here  we  offer  and  present  our- 
selves to  be  a  holy,  living  sacrifice,'  are  another  statement 
only  of  the  same  act.  The  Creed  standing  where  it  does 
in  the  services  forms  the  culmination  of  worship.  It  is  the 
great  act  of  self-consecration  on  the  part  of  the  wor- 
shippers. 

"The  Creed  can  be  rightly  and  honestly  repeated  by 
those  who  have  little  or  no  knowledge  of  the  real  meaning 
or  importance  of  its  subordinate  clauses,  or  who  attach  no 
definite  meaning  to  them,  or  who  use  them  in  some  vague 
way,  or  who  attach  unworthy  or  even  wrong  ideas  to  them; 
as,  for  example,  the  Holy  Catholic  Church;  the  Commun- 
ion of  Saints;  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body;  or  the  Descent 
into  hell  (which  at  best  is  obscure  in  its  meaning). 


THE  CREED  85 

"For  the  essence  of  the  Creed  lies  in  the  simple  formula 
of  which  it  is  the  expansion,  and  which  in  itself  is  the  com- 
plete summary  of  Christian  faith.  So  the  Church  cate- 
chism puts  it,  that  we  learn  from  the  Creed  three  things, 
etc.  According  to  this  statement  the  Creed  is  not  pri- 
marily a  collection  of  notions  and  opinions  or  statements 
about  the  Christian  faith,  or  a  summary  of  historical  facts, 
as  some  like  to  put  it,  upon  which  the  Church  is  based, 
but  rather  an  act  of  faith  in  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost. 

"The  trouble  with  Dr.  Bartol,  et  id  omne  genus,  is  that 
they  do  look  upon  it  in  this  lower  way,  as  a  mere  category 
of  statements,  and  for  this  reason  they  are  so  ready  to  cast 
a  slur  upon  the  intellectual  veracity  of  those  who  repeat  it, 
because  they  think  their  opinions  or  interpretations  of 
these  statements  do  not  accord  with  some  other  or  earlier 
set  of  opinions.  And  a  great  many  in  the  Church  are  ready 
to  do  the  same,  and  to  suspect  of  unveracity,  because  of 
divergencies  of  opinion.  And  I  constantly  hear  of  those 
who  think  they  cannot  honestly  repeat  the  Creed  because 
their  opinion  about  some  clause  is  not  in  harmony  with 
what  the  Church  teaches;  e.g.,  '  the  resurrection  of  the 
body.' 

"So,  for  myself,  I  have  great  charity  for  all  who  repeat 
the  Creed,  drawing  from  it  the  three  things  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Church  catechism,  it  is  given  to  teach,  however 
weak  or  vague  they  may  be  about  the  subordinate  clauses. 
For  none  of  us  fully  comes  up  to  all  the  meaning  they 
contain,  or  ever  will.  And  I  think  an  intellectual  self- 
consciousness  in  reference  to  them  a  hindrance  rather  than 
an  advantage  —  a  positive  hindrance  if  it  stand  by  itself. 

"But  if  a  man  is  in  this  lower  mood,  entangled  with 
negations,  and  conscious  of  having  reached  fixed  dogmatic 
conclusions,  which  contradict  the  letter  as  well  as  the 
spirit  of  these  articles,  as,  for  example,  that  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ  from  the  dead  is  untrue  and  impossible,  I  do 
not  see  how  he  can  reconcile  it  with  his  conscience  to  repeat 


86  BECOMING  KNOWN 

the  Creed.  Or,  if  a  clergyman,  thinking  in  this  way, 
stands  up  to  lead  the  devotions  of  a  congregation,  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  a  mere  official  act,  it  seems  to  me  that  he 
is  in  the  last  degree  dishonest." 

The  fall  of  1881  found  the  School  with  seventeen  new 
students,  making  thirty  in  all.  The  larger  classes,  together 
with  the  recognition  from  without,  gave  to  Mr.  Allen  added 
zest  in  teaching.  It  was  during  the  early  eighties  that  he 
reached  his  full  power  as  a  teacher  —  a  power  which  all 
his  students  felt  that  he  maintained  to  the  end.  His 
pupils  were  always  his  first  thought.  No  glitter  of  wider 
fame  ever  blinded  his  eyes  to  his  real  task.  Old  friends, 
calling  of  an  evening,  were  perplexed  and  sometimes  an- 
noyed to  find  that  when  a  student  came  in,  the  conversa- 
tion was  at  once  readjusted  to  take  the  student  in,  and  to 
be  made  to  minister  to  the  student  first  of  all. 

There  are  in  this  period  many  notebooks  filled  with 
reflections  upon  the  life  and  books  of  the  day.  A  few 
excerpts  will  show  their  tenor. 

"The  desire  for  organic  unity  to-day  is  not  an  altogether 
wholesome  sign.  It  proceeds  from  the  more  feminine  habit 
which  shrinks  from  struggle  and  difference  —  which  are  the 
grounds  of  growth.  Unity  would  be  stagnation,  loss  of  liberty, 
death.  Struggle,  constant  conflict,  is  the  sign  of  progress.  It 
is  the  condition  of  it." 

"The  Christians  want  their  Mallock  and  their  Cook  —  they 
must  not  be  surprised  if  they  find  that  they  have  to  take  also 
their  Ingersoll.  I  don't  know  that  the  latter  misrepresents 
Christianity  more  than  the  two  former  misrepresent  the  forces 
and  school  of  thought  which  they  satirize." 

"The  feelings  versus  the  Sacraments.  This  is  not  the  only 
alternative.  Christianity  is  a  life,  not  a  religion  of  feeling,  or  a 
religion  of  external  rites.  The  test  of  the  life  is  not  an  emotion 
toward  God,  which  is  fluctuating,  but  the  principle  of  obedience. 
'He  that  doeth  My  commandments,  he  it  is  that  loveth  Me.'  " 


NOTES  87 

"Dr.  Mulford  suggests  the  need  of  a  history  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church.  It  should  be  written  from  a  national  point 
of  view,  bringing  out  the  democratic  character  of  its  Episcopate, 
how  the  moment  when  it  was  organized  was  a  fortunate  one  — 
the  hour  of  the  birth  of  a  great  nation.  How  it  must  be  a  com- 
prehensive Church,  and  the  idea  must  be  brought  out  that  if  any 
other  Church  contains  elements  of  strength  we  must  have  them, 
or  else  we  justify  their  existence.  It  should  trace  the  rise  and 
growth  of  parties.  How  the  people  are  the  final  referee.  It 
would  contain  the  lessons  learned  from  the  history  of  the 
English  Church,  but  we  also  took  a  lesson  from  the  French 
Revolution." 

"Each  of  the  great  separatist  movements  of  the  17th  century 
in  England  was  a  wave  of  reinforcement  to  the  cause  of  Liberty 
of  the  Church  and  so  of  the  Nation.  (1)  The  Presbyterians, 
the  liberty  of  the  clergy;  (2)  The  Independents,  the  liberty  of 
the  laity;  (3)  The  Baptists,  religious  toleration  —  in  self- 
defence;  (4)  The  Quakers,  the  freedom  of  the  Spirit.  The 
Quakers  must  have  given  the  impulse  to  the  great  Liberal 
Theologians  of  the  17th  century." 

"The  nearness  or  presence  of  God  does  not  mean  a  physical 
nearness  or  presence,  about  which  we  cannot  know  anything; 
but  it  is  a  moral  or  spiritual  nearness,  which  is  conditioned  by 
love.  Love  brings  things  near  that  are  separated  by  space. 
So  with  friends.  So  with  God.  Love  is  the  basis  of  the  Com- 
munion of  Saints.  Those  whom  we  love  are  always  near, 
always  present." 

"To  study  history  is  to  bring  one  near  to  the  process  of  God; 
i.e.,  the  study  of  it  upon  a  large  scale,  which  takes  in  great 
reaches  of  events.  'The  undevout  astronomer  is  mad.'  The 
same  might  be  said  of  the  undevout  historian." 

"  'A  most  Athenian  gentleman,  dreadfully  at  his  ease  in 
Zion ,'  seems  to  me  to  hit  off  Plato  to  the  life.  There  is  none  of 
the  yearning  over  men's  sins  which  expresses  itself  in,  'Tears  run 
down  my  cheeks  because  men  keep  not  Thy  law.'  " 


88  BECOMING  KNOWN 

"Professor  Fisher  remarked  to  me  that  the  Presbyterians 
never  gave  Edwards  anything  but  the  smallpox." 

"The  Personal  Christ  is  in  Himself  our  religion,  and  our 
authority.  Christ  is  Christianity.  The  relationship  of  the 
individual  soul  to  the  Personal  Christ  in  faith  and  love  and 
obedience  is  the  ground  of  salvation  and  of  hope  for  mankind. 
This  is  the  inspiration  alike  for  the  study  of  the  Bible,  of  history, 
and  of  theology." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RECOGNITION 
1882-1884 

JANUARY  13,  1882,  Dr.  Stone  died.  His  work  had 
been  in  Dr.  Gray's  hands  for  several  years,  but  his 
going  was  a  change  for  the  School  and  especially  for  Mr. 
Allen.  "He  died  yesterday  morning,"  Mr.  Allen  wrote 
to  his  brother,  "from  an  attack  of  apoplexy.  It  was  a 
short,  quick  transit.  All  Thursday  night  he  lay  Breathing 
with  great  difficulty :  I  could  only  think  of  him  as  having 
begun  a  long  journey,  a  toilsome  ascent,  which  he  was 
labouring  hard  to  accomplish.  For  the  last  few  weeks  he 
has  been  serene  and  cheerful  as  a  child.  It  is  hard  to 
realize  that  he  has  actually  gone.  He  died  in  the  study, 
with  which  he  was  so  identified,  and  lies  there  now.  It 
seems  strange  to  go  in  without  speaking  to  him,  as  he 
seems  only  asleep  and  would  awake  in  a  moment.  It  was 
striking  to  note  how  his  face  became  composed  when  all 
was  over.  The  features  took  on  the  most  beautiful  ex- 
pression, and  he  looks  handsomer  and  younger  than  when 
I  first  began  to  know  him."  So  passed  this  saint  of  the 
old  Evangelical  School.     Mr.  Allen  owed  him  much. 

The  year  1882  opened  with  a  heavy  burden  of  work. 
This  he  confessed  to  his  mother:  "I  am  living  under  a 
good  deal  of  pressure.  I  have  about  finished  my  Prince- 
ton article  on  Dr.  Mulford's  book,  but  it  has  yet  to  be 
copied.  In  two  weeks  I  begin  a  course  of  Church  History 
lectures  at  Harvard  University,  which  are  to  be  open  to 
the  public.     I  suppose  some  of  the  dons  may  be  present. 

89 


9o  RECOGNITION 

I  am  not  making  much  preparation  for  them,  for  I  have 
been  too  busy,  and  I  shall  have  to  go  it  ex  tempore.  So  I 
dread  them  a  little.  But  every  one  tells  me  they  will  be  a 
success;  so  I  am  trying  to  take  courage.  There  will  be 
five  of  them  in  all,  an  hour  and  a  quarter  in  length,  and  all 
other  lectures  in  the  University  will  be  suspended  while 
they  go  on.  It  is  regarded  as  quite  a  significant  move 
that  a  Churchman  should  be  lecturing  at  Harvard  and 
above  all  on  Church  History.  I  suppose  they  take  for 
granted  in  the  faculty  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  prose- 
lyte or  abuse  anybody,  which  is  true.  ...  I  have  also 
been  invited  to  consider  the  question  of  writing  a  biogra- 
phy of  Dr.  Stone.  He  has  left  a  good  many  papers,  and 
when  I  have  looked  them  over,  I  am  to  decide.  He  ought 
to  have  a  biographer,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  do 
it  well." 

He  read  the  first  draft  of  his  Princeton  Review  article 
at  the  Ministers'  Club  in  January;  then  rigorously  revised 
it.  "It  has  become,"  he  told  his  brother,  "a  much  larger 
treatment  than  I  originally  intended.  The  point  which  I 
am  trying  to  make  is  that  theology  is  conditioned  in  all  its 
departments  by  the  conception  of  God  with  which  it 
starts.  The  old  theology  which  came  down  through  the 
Middle  Ages  to  Protestant  thinkers  of  the  17th  and  18th 
centuries  was  substantially  the  same,  because  it  started 
with  the  same  assumption,  as  to  the  nature  of  Deity.  It 
was  not  a  thing  reasoned  out,  but  was  rather  a  natural 
deduction  from  premises  assumed,  and  so  it  grew,  and,  so 
far  as  it  was  defended  to  reason,  the  reasoning  was  worth 
no  more  than  the  original  premise.  This  I  propose  to 
apply  to  Mulford  and  to  show  that  modern  theology, 
which  he  represents,  simply  changes  the  interpretation  on 
any  point  because  it  starts  with  a  different  theistic  princi- 
ple. These  principles  are,  on  the  one  hand,  the  distant 
Deity,  separate  and  remote  from  the  world;  and,  on  the 
other,  Deity  immanent,  indwelling  in  the  world.     Where 


BOXFORD  9i 

these  ideas  came  from  I  also  undertake  to  show.  But 
to  formal  reasoning  I  am  attaching  little  importance  in 
the  process.  I  am  trying  to  show  that  Mulford  is  not 
hurling  a  mass  of  gratuitous  intuitions  at  one's  head,  but 
that  modern  theology,  granting  its  principle,  is  seen  to 
grow  in  such  directions." 

Boxford,  which  this  year  began  to  be  his  summer  home, 
proved  hot  and  sleepy,  but  otherwise  delightful.  To  forget 
the  heat,  he  studied  with  unusual  diligence.  From  this 
quiet  retreat  he  was  looking  out  upon  the  world.  "I  quite 
agree  with  you  about  the  troubles  in  Egypt,"  he  said  to  his 
mother.  "I  should  like  to  see  England  go  in  and  take 
possession  of  the  country  with  a  strong  hand.  The 
country  will  never  thrive,  or  have  even  a  decent,  settled 
government  under  Mohammedan  fanatics.  I  dislike  the 
Arabs:  they  are  a  mean,  treacherous  set,  worse  than  the 
Jews,  to  deal  with.  They  have  had  possession  of  Egypt 
for  1 200  years,  and  have  taken  on  no  civilization  in  all 
that  time,  and  are  not  likely  to  do  so  by  themselves  in  the 
future.  .  .  .  There  is  no  news  with  us:  the  place  is  too 
quiet  for  anything.  The  main  sensation  is  the  mail  at  four 
o'clock  each  day." 

The  year  1882  was  marked  by  Dr.  Wharton's  resignation 
from  the  faculty,  and  Mr.  Nash's  election  as  an  instructor. 
Judge  Bennett  was  elected  trustee  to  fill  Judge  Putnam's 
place;  and  Mr.  Winthrop  succeeded  Mr.  Rand  as  presi- 
dent of  the  trustees.  Mr.  Lawrence,  a  generous  and 
patient  treasurer,  resigned,  and  was  succeeded  as  treasurer 
by  Mr.  Burnham. 

There  was  diversion  when  the  November  number  of  The 
Princeton  Review  brought  out  the  first  of  the  articles  on 
The  Theological  Renaissance.  "I  am  glad,"  he  said  to  his 
mother,  "to  find  myself  in  such  highly  respectable  com- 
pany as  Dr.  McCosh  and  Goldwin  Smith.  I  was  much 
surprised  to  receive  this  morning  a  letter  from  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  in  which  he  thanks  me  for  the  article;  says  that 


92  RECOGNITION 

it  will  help  him  in  his  preaching,  and  that  it  clears  up  his 
mind,  etc.,  that  he  looks  forward  to  the  second  article  with 
intense  interest.  I  don't  exactly  know  whether  to  feel 
complimented  or  not.  I  want  to  hear  from  the  more  ortho- 
dox sort,  that  it  has  led  them  to  abandon  their  idols,  etc." 

During  November  Mr.  Allen  received  an  invitation  to 
deliver  the  Bohlen  Lectures  in  Philadelphia  in  1883. 
In  December  he  wrote:  "I  have  received  a  letter  from 
Phillips  Brooks,  asking  me  to  put  my  Princeton  article  in 
book  form.1  I  think  somewhat  of  doing  so.  If  it  were 
not  that  I  had  the  Bohlen  Lectures  on  my  shoulders,  I 
should  have  no  trouble."  As  a  result  of  the  various  sug- 
gestions, the  Life  of  Dr.  Stone  and  the  publishing  of  the 
Church  History  Lectures  were  never  accomplished,  and 
the  Bohlen  Lectures  became  the  expansion  of  the  ideas  set 
forth  in  the  November  article  in  The  Princeton  Review. 
The  second  article,  which  was  more  exclusively  a  review  of 
Dr.  Mulford's  Republic  of  God,  appeared  in  the  Review  for 
January,   1883. 

His  mother  read  the  Princeton  article  with  scrupulous 
attention.  "You  seem  to  be  complimented,"  she  wrote, 
"by  noted  persons  who,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  are  not  soundly 
orthodox.  Poor  Ward  Beecher  seems  to  be  coming  out  a 
Darwinian.  I  am  afraid  I  should  not  value  the  opinion 
of  the  great  Dr.  Brooks  as  highly  as  you  do.  .  .  .  Now 
I  should  like  to  have  you  receive  some  complimentary 
notes  from  such  men  as  Dr.  Dyer  or  Dr.  Cuyler  or  Dr. 
Park,  who  I  think  are  soundly  orthodox.  ...  I  am 
anxious  to  see  the  second  article.  I  hope  you  have  not 
said  anything  that  you  may  regret  or  that  may  injure 
the  Evangelical  School  in  which  you  are  a  professor.  I 
say  all  this  with  the  deepest  interest  in  the  welfare  of  my 
darling  child." 

The  Bohlen  Lectures  hung  over  him  all  summer  like  a 
cloud.  "My  head  is  full  of  ideas,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor 
1  Life  and  Letters  of  Phillips  Brooks,  vol.  ii.  p.  344. 


BOHLEN  LECTURES  93 

from  Boxford,  "but  I  have  an  unusual  reluctance  to  touch 
pen  to  paper.  I  just  came  across  a  passage  in  Renan's 
Reminiscences  to  the  effect  that  he  thought  like  a  man, 
felt  like  a  woman,  and  acted  like  a  child.  That  describes 
other  people  besides  Renan." 

He  went  down  to  Boston  the  last  Monday  in  September 
to  be  present  at  a  dinner  given  to  Phillips  Brooks  by  his 
friends  to  welcome  him  from  his  year  abroad.     The  fol- 
lowing Wednesday  the  School  opened,  but  Dr.  Steenstra, 
with  characteristic  friendship,  arranged  among  other  mem- 
bers of  the  faculty  to  have  Mr.  Allen's  hours  taken,  so 
that  he  might  be  free  to  remain  in  Boxford  to  write  upon 
his  lectures.     "Now,"  he  wrote,  "you  must  give  yourself 
to  the  lectures  wholly,  solely,  and  exclusively.     When  I 
think  of  the  little  time  you  have  left  I  almost  get  nervous 
for  the  honour  of  the  School.     And  I  am  much  afraid  that 
if  you  move  into  Cambridge  now,  your  energies  will   be 
fatally  distracted.     You  had  better  stay  in  Boxford.   .   .   . 
I  have  grateful  memories  of  a  perfect  autumn  day  there." 
So  for  a  month  longer  he  remained  in  Boxford,  and  even 
after  his   return  to  Cambridge  he  was  excused  from  his 
School  work  till  after  the  Bohlen  Lectures  were  delivered 
in  December.     It  was  an  important  year  for  the  School. 
Mr.  Nash  so  quickly  proved  his  power  that  he  was  made 
a  full  professor.     Of  the  trustees,  Mr.  Burnham  died  this 
year,  and  his  place  was  filled  by  the  election  of  Mr.  Robert 
Treat  Paine. 

On  November  10,  1883,  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  "This  day 
the  house  at  No.  2,  Phillips  Place  was  finally  vacated  by 
Mrs.  Stone's  departure,  and  we  enter  it  as  our  home.  The 
day  is  memorable  otherwise  as  the  400th  anniversary  of 
the  birth  of  Martin  Luther."  Henceforth,  to  the  end, 
No.  2,  Phillips  Place  was  his  home.  The  large  drawing- 
room,  and  the  study  even  more,  were  havens  of  rest  for 
perplexed  and  troubled  students.  The  study  held  his  books, 
bought  always  with  sacrifice.     The  first  picture  he  bought 


94  RECOGNITION 

was  there  —  an  engraving  of  Joseph  presenting  his  breth- 
ren to  Pharaoh.  There  he  used  the  desk  given  by  his 
parishioners  at  the  Church  of  the  Ascension,  East  Cam- 
bridge. There  he  kept  the  prints  or  photographs  of  his 
heroes  and  friends.  He  delighted  in  two  queer  prints  of 
Gladstone  and  Disraeli,  which  he  framed  together:  "Yes," 
he  would  say  as  a  student  went  over  to  see  it,  "there  is  the 
Country's  William,  the  good  boy,  with  the  flower  in  his 
buttonhole  and  with  the  treasure-chest  before  him  —  he's 
explaining  the  budget,  and  Dizzy  sits  ineffably  bored." 
Over  the  fireplace  hung  at  first  a  portrait  of  Dr.  Stone,  and 
later  (when  the  portrait  was  hung  in  the  School)  Kaul- 
bach's  Heroes  of  the  Reformation.  He  liked  to  point  out 
this  face  and  that.  His  love  of  bright  red  was  symbolized 
by  the  red  wall-paper,  which  gleamed  between  the  pic- 
tures. Probably  there  was  not  a  thing  in  the  room  which 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world  had  any  money  value.  Yet  all 
who  entered  felt  instantly  the  charm  and  power  of 
the  room. 

The  day  after  Christmas  Mr.  Allen  wrote  to  his  mother: 
"I  am  happy  to  say  that  the  Bohlen  Lectures  are  over, 
and  as  you  see  I  have  returned  safe  to  Cambridge.  I 
stayed  with  Henry  most  of  the  time  I  was  in  Philadelphia 
and  became  quite  well  acquainted  with  Glen  Loch.  Now 
I  have  to  go  to  work  to  get  out  my  book,  which  accord- 
ing to  my  agreement  ought  to  be  out  in  four  months.  I 
shall  try  to  have  it  ready  by  that  time." 

But  it  was  not  ready  in  four  months.  When  he  thought 
of  printing  the  lectures,  his  ideal  for  the  book  was  so  far 
beyond  them,  that  he  was  in  despair.  The  book  was  not 
published  till  November  15,  1884,  and  the  year  1884  is 
the  chronicle  of  responsibility  for  a  great  and  necessary 
idea  which  he  felt  that  he  was  commissioned  to  speak  to 
the  Church. 

One  day  this  winter  he  wrote  to  his  brother  in  reply  to  a 
question  asking  what  he  had  said  in  his  lectures  about 


PROBATION  95 

probation:  "I  can't  remember  what  I  said.  I  have  not 
yet  read  them  over,  or  touched  them  since  I  came  back. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  remark  of  Erskine's  which  he  is  said  to 
have  made  to  everyone  who  came  to  talk  with  him,  to  the 
effect  that  it  is  the  greatest  mistake  in  religion  to  speak  of 
life  as  a  probation,  that  it  is  more  truly  an  education.  The 
idea  of  life  as  a  probation  seems  to  have  been  made  promi- 
nent in  the  17th  century  theology,  when  Luther's  doctrine 
of  Justification  by  Faith  had  lost  its  original  significance, 
and  when  Calvin's  doctrine  of  Election  had  also  lost  its 
original  quality,  in  which  it  was  like  Luther's  idea  of 
fiducia;  for  Calvin's  doctrine  of  election  implied  that  the 
elect  knew  that  they  were  elect.  But  the  theology  of  the 
17th  century  had  reverted  in  this  respect  to  the  mediaeval 
principle,  that  no  one  could  be  sure  of  salvation,  or  ought 
to  want  to  feel  so.  And  Luther's  doctrine  was  condemned 
at  Trent  under  the  heading  of  the  'Vain  confidence  of 
heretics.'  But  there  was  such  vain  confidence  in  the  idea 
of  life  as  a  probation.  It  seems  to  me,  further,  that  the  idea 
of  probation  rests  upon  the  old  postulates  of  a  distant  Deity, 
and  of  humanity  as  independent  of  God,  and  of  salvation 
as  an  escape  from  a  certain  physical  doom.  An  immanent 
Deity,  life  organized  upon  a  moral  plane,  humanity  as 
dependent  upon  God,  and  akin  to  Deity  in  its  highest 
essence,  and  Salvation  as  consisting  in  the  free  imitation 
of  the  Divine  —  all  these  lead  to  another  conception  of  life ; 
namely,  that  it  is  an  education.  The  element  of  probation 
may  still  be  regarded  as  inhering  in  this  idea,  but  it  no 
longer  implies  that  man's  failure  is  irreparable.  The 
Divine  Teacher  has  forces  at  His  disposal,  if  not  here, 
elsewhere,  which  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  slow 
pupil.  I  quoted  a  passage  from  the  Bishop  of  Argyle 
which  puts  the  two  views  of  education  and  probation  in 
clear  contrast  — '  God  does  not  teach  in  order  that  He 
may  judge,  but  He  judges  in  order  that  He  may  teach.' 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  clearer  conception  of  God  as  the 


96  RECOGNITION 

Father  necessarily  leads  to  the  same  conclusion.  But 
all  this  is  as  clear  to  you  as  to  me,  and  you  can  put  it  better." 

In  February  he  sent  his  mother  Munger's  new  volume 
of  sermons  with  the  comment:  "I  think  that  they  are  the 
finest  sermons  I  ever  read;  but  I  may  be  partial,  for  I  am 
mentioned  in  one  of  the  foot-notes."  His  mother  gave 
grudging  approval,  saying  that  they  were  better  than  she 
expected  to  find  them.  "Carlyle,"  she  added,  "used  to 
tell  his  poor  anxious  mother,  who  felt  so  deep  an  interest 
in  his  spiritual  welfare,  that  he  believed  as  she  did,  only  he 
expressed  himself  differently.  But  his  mother  could  never 
be  satisfied  with  his  different  explanation.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  New  Theology  has  built  a  little  skiff  by  the  side 
of  the  Gospel  Ship,  which  is  not  a  safe  craft  upon  the  Ocean 
of  Life.  St.  Paul  says,  'If  ye  abide  not  in  the  ship,  ye 
cannot  be  saved.'  Now  I  think  that  one  of  Moody's  plain 
simple  Gospel  sermons  might  be  the  means  of  saving  more 
souls  than  volumes  like  Munger's.  One  addresses  himself 
to  the  heart  and  conscience,  the  other  to  the  understand- 
ing by  philosophical  reasoning."  The  son  reverently  took 
note:  both  as  teacher  and  as  writer  he  strove  to  make  his 
appeal  to  both  heart  and  mind. 

A  month  later  he  told  her  that  he  was  working  at  his 
book  as  hard  as  he  could,  but  he  could  get  little  time.  "I 
find  that  I  am  constantly  tempted,"  he  said,  "to  do  little 
odd  jobs  about  the  house,  and  they  are  much  more  inter- 
esting than  my  literary  work.  I  have  got  several  kinds 
of  paint,  and  go  round  touching  up  the  woodwork  of  the 
windows  and  other  places  where  the  paint  is  worn  off." 

The  School  Commencement  of  1884  was  marked  by  the 
resignation  from  the  trustees  of  Mr.  Lawrence,  who,  after 
the  founder,  was  the  chief  benefactor  of  the  School.  His 
place  was  filled  by  the  election  of  Mr.  Harcourt  Amory. 
In  June  the  trustees  lost  by  death  Mr.  J.  S.  Amory.  The 
School  was  strengthened  by  the  election  of  Dr.  Phillips 
Brooks  to  the  Board  of  Visitors.    This  year  the  Seniors 


THE  CONTINUITY  97 

had   a   "retreat"  at  Concord.     They  invited  Mr.  Allen. 
"Thank  you:  no,"  he  said,  "I  prefer  to  advance." 

Commencement  Day  past,  the  freedom  of  Boxford 
enabled  Mr.  Allen  to  write  to  his  brother,  August  6:  "I 
came  down  to  Boston  to-day  and  brought  with  me  the 
manuscript  of  the  new  book  and  put  it  into  the  hands  of 
the  publisher.  The  printing  of  the  book,  which  is  to  be 
called  The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  will  begin  next 
week.  It  has  been  a  dreadful  job,  and  I  don't  think  I  am 
likely  soon  to  undertake  another  of  the  same  kind.  For 
more  than  a  year  I  have  been  at  it,  and  have  been  practi- 
cally out  of  the  world;  for  I  have  thought  of  little  else.  .  .  . 
Still  I  manage  to  keep  an  eye  open  for  politics.  I  am  agin 
Blaine,  and  I  don't  think  he  can  be  elected.  I  was  much 
interested  in  your  last  letter  in  which  you  give  your  views 
upon  the  political  situation.  The  Advertiser  is  pretty  sound 
upon  the  subject.  It  won't  say  much  for  Cleveland,  but 
it  tells  the  truth  about  James  Gillespie.  I  am  sorry  the 
book  is  coming  out  in  the  midst  of  a  presidential  campaign, 
for  I  am  afraid  it  will  withdraw  too  much  attention  from 
the  political  issues!" 

After  he  began  to  read  the  proof,  he  asked  Dr.  Brooks 
if  he  might  inscribe  the  new  book  to  him.  "I  shall  be 
proud  and  thankful,"  Mr.  Brooks  replied,  "to  see  the  in- 
scription which  you  propose  for  your  new  book.  I  have 
no  right  to  it,  none  whatever,  but  I  am  too  heartily  pleased 
at  the  thought  of  having  my  name  so  cordially  associated 
with  yours  in  your  work  to  argue  my  desert.  I  thank  you 
with  all  my  heart,  and  I  shall  count  this  friendly  act  of 
yours  one  of  the  things  to  be  most  proud  and  glad  of  in 
my  life." 

"You  will  be  glad  to  hear,"  he  told  his  mother,  October 
15,  "that  the  book  is  at  last  finished.  When  I  became 
aware  that  I  was  actually  writing  the  last  page  I  sent  for 
Bessie  and  the  children  to  come  into  the  study  to  see  me 
write  the  delightful  words,  The  End" 


98  RECOGNITION 

Part  of  the  agony  of  allowing  anything  which  he  had 
written  to  be  printed  was  his  discontent  with  its  form. 
The  first  concern  was  for  the  substance;  but  the  concern 
for  the  form  was  insistent.  It  was  probably  the  musical 
temperament  in  him  —  which  he  saw  that  he  must  stifle. 
When  one  cold  night  in  his  student  days  he  was  conscious 
that  he  had  over-used  his  voice  and  he  never  could  sing 
again  in  the  old  way,  he  was  in  despair.  Later  he  used  to 
say  that  it  was  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened 
to  him:  with  his  voice  unimpaired  he  never  would  have 
amounted  to  anything.  "It  didn't  matter,"  he  once  told 
a  friend,  "what  I  said  in  those  days  —  because  my  voice 
was  so  beautiful."  Still  the  musical  temperament  besieged 
him,  and  finally  he  closed  the  piano,  as  a  sort  of  ceremonial 
last  act.  Even  on  Sunday  evenings  when  the  family 
gathered  around  the  piano  to  sing  hymns,  Mrs.  Allen  would 
play,  except  very  rarely  when  the  boys  especially  begged 
him  to  play  because  he  made  "such  nice  rumbly  noises"  to 
supply  the  parts  the  voices  could  not  take.  Towards  the 
end  he  even  ceased  to  hear  the  symphony  orchestra.  He 
had  always  satisfaction  in  reading  over  music  in  silence: 
his  quick  imagination  heard  it  all.  His  life,  and  especially 
his  writing,  cannot  be  understood  without  remembering 
this  steady  battle  against  the  passion  for  music  within  him. 
It  beckoned  him  to  an  ideal  harmony,  but  his  stern  New 
Englandism  told  him  that  he  must  act,  he  must  speak, 
even  if  action  and  utterance  be  imperfect.  The  agony  of 
allowing  the  first  book  to  be  printed  was  repeated  again 
and  again  as  later  books  and  articles  appeared. 

Here,  on  the  eve  of  the  publication  of  The  Continuity  of 
Christian  Thought  it  is  well  to  pause.  From  January,  1882, 
beginning  with  the  loyal  intention  to  honour  a  friend's 
book,  he  was  led  to  the  development  of  a  great  idea  —  the 
grip  on  history  of  men's  conception  of  the  Divine  Imma- 
nence. The  Princeton  articles,  the  Bohlen  Lectures,  the 
necessary  book,  all  were  incidents.     He  was  being  driven 


WESTCOTT'S  MESSAGE  99 

to  do  what  he  had  not  precisely  planned  to  do.  He  rev- 
erently bowed  before  God's  leadership.  He  often  said  to 
those  nearest  him  that  he  felt  himself  under  compulsion. 

Outwardly  these  were  years  of  recognition.  "Tell  Dr. 
Allen,"  Westcott  said  to  Endicott  Peabody,  this  summer 
in  Cambridge,  "that  I  warmly  welcome  his  effort  to  put  the 
emphasis  upon  Greek  Theology."  The  Princeton  article 
had  warned  the  theological  world  that  he  must  be  counted 
as  an  authority. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FAME 

1885-1886 

UNDER  the  date  November  15,  1884,  Dr.  Allen  wrote 
in  his  diary:  "This  day  was  published  The  Con- 
tinuity of  Christian  Thought."  The  first  to  speak  was 
Dr.  Brooks:  — 

"Sunday  evening,  November  16,  1884. 
"My  dear  Allen: 

"  I  spent  last  evening  with  your  Book  and  sat  up  late  in  my 
enjoyment  of  it.  You  may  be  sure  I  think  that  you  have  made 
the  thought  which  is  in  your  mind  profoundly  interesting  to  all 
who  open  your  pages  intelligently,  and  it  is  so  much  to  have 
done  that  with  thought  as  deep  and  true  as  yours.  I  congratu- 
late you  with  all  my  heart  on  your  success  and  on  the  delight 
your  Book  must  bring  and  the  light  which  it  must  open  to  many 
thoughtful  and  earnest  minds.  It  was  well  worth  waiting  for, 
and  its  value  and  interest  will  not  be  for  a  day.  I  cannot  tell 
you  what  a  pride  and  pleasure  it  is  to  me  to  be  associated 
with  your  work  by  my  name's  appearing  in  its  dedication,  in 
token  of  a  friendship  which  I  prize  more  and  more. 
"Affectionately  yours, 

"Phillips  Brooks." 

To  his  brother  Dr.  Allen  wrote:  "It  is  a  queer  experi- 
ence sending  out  a  book,  an  experience  which  is  a  decided 
sensation.  First  comes  the  sense  of  relief  when  it  is  done. 
Then  follows  a  dreadful  reaction  from  all  the  excitement 
and  pressure  you  have  been  under  for  months.  I  can't  do 
anything  or  put  my  mind  to  anything.     Life  seems  to  have 


BISHOP  SEABURY  101 

lost  its  interest.  Meantime,  you  become  aware  that  you 
have  done  something  and  grow  wondrously  sensitive  about 
it.  It  has  seemed  to  me  for  the  last  ten  days  as  though 
there  were  an  awful  silence,  and  I  was  waiting  to  hear  the 
world's  verdict.  Then  come  these  trumpery  little  notices, 
as  though  you  had  done  some  commonplace  thing  and 
even  that  not  very  well.  I  suppose  I  shall  be  in  this  mood 
for  months  yet.  If  the  reviews  notice  the  book,  I  shall  be 
undergoing  dissection  till  spring.  Then  the  book  is  to  be 
republished  in  England  and  I  shall  be  on  the  lookout  for 
what  the  Spectator  and  Saturday  and  Westminster  have  to 
say.  My  feeling  is  one  of  so  great  modesty  that  I  don't 
think  they  will  notice  me." 

"I  was  much  pleased,"  he  wrote  his  mother,  December 
ii,  "with  what  you  say  about  the  book,  very  much  indeed. 
...  I  hope  to  send  down  Maurice's  Life  soon.  I  send 
the  papers  pretty  regularly.  There  isn't  much  in  them  at 
present.  The  Seabury  Centennial  seems  to  fill  the  imagi- 
nation of  The  Churchman.  I  imagine  Seabury  was  one  of 
the  most  obnoxious  men  of  the  Hard  Church  type  who 
ever  wore  the  mitre.  It  must  have  required  all  of  Bishop 
White's  piety  and  humility  to  get  along  with  him.  One 
would  now  think  that  Seabury  was  a  sort  of  supernatural 
being,  to  hear  them  talk,  and  that  the  Church  could  not 
show  gratitude  enough  to  heaven  for  having  vouchsafed 
him.  The  argument  seems  to  be  that  we  should  appre- 
ciate more  highly  all  our  bishops,  and  treat  them  as  if 
they  had  angelic  wisdom  and  power." 

The  time  of  "  silence  "  soon  passed.  All  sorts  of  people, 
known  and  unknown,  sent  him  words  of  gratitude  in  the 
early  months  of  1885.  Very  few  of  the  letters  sounded 
any  note  of  partisanship;  nearly  all  spoke  of  the  giving 
of  faith  and  courage,  because  the  book  made  clear  the 
historic  necessity  of  trusting  God's  Love. 

Edward  Clifford,  the  English  artist  who  revealed  Father 
Damien,  happened  that  January  to  be  in  Boston.     Some 


102  FAME 

one  put  The  Continuity  into  his  hands.  When  he  had  read 
the  first  hundred  pages  and  the  last  chapter,  he  sat  down 
at  once  and  asked  Dr.  Allen  if  he  might  call  to  see  him 
before  he  returned  to  London.  "I  am  reading  your  book," 
he  wrote,  .  .  .  "I  feel  that  its  value  can  scarcely  be  over- 
estimated." John  C.  Ropes,  the  historian,  wrote  to  Dr. 
Allen,  in  the  midst  of  a  long  letter  of  gratitude  for  the  help 
the  book  had  brought  him:  "It  seems  to  me  the  most 
important  contribution  to  Christian  history  and  Christian 
thought  made  in  our  time.  With  wonderful  clearness  and 
point,  and  with  perfect  impartiality  and  temper,  you  have 
reviewed  the  history  of  the  Church." 

Mr.  Ropes  insisted  on  his  coming  to  dinner,  that  he 
might  introduce  him  to  certain  friends.  "We  sat  down," 
wrote  Dr.  Allen  to  his  mother,  "a  party  of  twelve  gentle- 
men. I  had  the  seat  of  honour  next  Mr.  Ropes.  He 
talked  about  the  book.  He  made  many  inquiries  regard- 
ing my  antecedents,  wanted  to  know  the  town  where  I  was 
born,  wondered  how  I  came  to  go  to  Kenyon  College  — 
which  I  found  it  hard  to  explain  and  finally  owned  up  to 
the  economy  of  the  thing.  He  is  a  true  Bostonian,  and  is 
therefore  inclined  to  be  amazed  at  anything  good  coming 
out  of  any  other  country.  I  finally  said  that  I  came  of  old 
Puritan  stock,  had  ancestors  at  Hingham  as  early  as  1636, 
and  with  that  he  seemed  satisfied,  as  though  I  had  justified 
my  right  to  make  a  book  which  amounted  to  anything." 

"You  are  kind  to  write  me  such  a  charming  letter  about 
my  book,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  his  friend  Dr.  Huntington, 
of  Grace  Church,  New  York.  "I  think  you  have  a  certain 
affiliation  with  the  Greek  Theology.  My  argument  is, 
not  that  the  Latin  is  of  a  peculiar  genus  separated  by  an 
impassable  gulf  from  the  Greek,  but  that  when  he  begins 
to  use  his  reason  —  which  he  has  been  taught  is  danger- 
ous for  the  well-being  of  authority  —  he  comes  under  the 
Greek  spell,  which  is  nothing  else  but  the  highest  reason  — 
'Truth  for  authority,  and  not  authority  for  truth.'  .  .  . 


PRAYER  BOOK  REVISED  103 

The  worst  usurpation  in  history  was  not  the  papal,  but  the 
Augustinian,  by  which  the  West  in  its  barbarism  con- 
demned the  higher,  more  ancient  theology  as  heresy." 

Then  he  turned  to  Dr.  Huntington  himself:  "When  I 
last  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you,  you  were  worn  down 
with  your  great  work  in  the  Convention,  and  were  about 
going  abroad  to  recruit.  I  was  then  so  absorbed  in  my 
task  that  I  had  not  fully  realized  the  greatness  of  the  task 
which  you  had  actually  accomplished.  Now  that  I  appre- 
ciate it,  I  want  to  congratulate  you  on  doing  a  work  which 
is  the  most  remarkable  that  has  been  accomplished  since 
the  Reformation.  I  don't  believe  that  any  other  man  in 
the  Church  could  have  accomplished  it  but  yourself.  I 
imagine  that  it  will  not  stop  with  America,  but  will  influence 
the  whole  Church  of  England.  That  certainly  is  enough 
as  a  life-work  for  any  one  man  to  have  done;  it  is  a  mar- 
vellous thing  to  have  accomplished.  The  Church  has 
hardly  yet  recovered  from  the  surprise  that  so  great  a 
change  as  revising  the  Prayer  Book,  or  rather  touching  the 
book  at  all,  has  really  been  effected,  and  that  we  are  all 
the  gainers  by  it." 

The  summer  of  1885  at  Boxford  was  a  real  vacation. 
In  August  he  said  to  his  brother:  "The  days  slip  by  so  fast 
here,  each  with  its  work  or  play  so  full,  that  I  don't  seem 
to  find  time  to  do  anything  so  literary-like  as  writing  a 
letter."  His  brother  asked  him  why  the  book  did  not 
start  with  the  New  Testament.  "It  would  have  been 
hopeless,"  he  replied,  "if  I  had  allowed  myself  to  get  en- 
tangled with  the  New  Testament.  I  took  up  the  history 
with  the  first  writers  in  the  Post-Apostolic  Age,  and  I  did 
not  find  them  doing  anything  with  St.  Paul,  either  quoting 
him  or  exhibiting  any  trace  of  his  influence.  So  I  omitted 
him  —  as  a  factor  of  which  I  needed  to  take  no  account. 
I  very  much  question  whether  his  influence  was  so  great 
as  Baur  and  Pfleiderer  suppose.  He  was  more  studied  in 
the  Pre-Reformation  Age  than  he  ever  was  in  the  Ancient 


104  FAME 

Church.  Another  reason  why  I  thought  I  might  pass  over 
the  Apostles  and  New  Testament  with  impunity,  was  my 
belief  that  when  they  began  in  the  third  and  fourth  cen- 
turies to  study  Scripture,  they  used  it  only  to  confirm  beliefs 
and  practices,  or  rather  to  illustrate  them,  rather  than  to 
draw  from  it  as  a  source  of  belief  and  practice.  This  is  a 
difficult  point,  I  know.  Steenstra  does  not  agree  with  me 
altogether  in  regard  to  it.  But  I  argue  from  our  own  age, 
when  we  do  pretty  much  the  same,  and  so  I  think  they  did 
then.  This  is,  however,  one  of  my  defects,  that  I  have 
not  connected  the  beliefs  of  the  Church  with  Scripture,  or 
tried  to  do  so.  .  .  .  I  start  with  this  point  that  there 
were  two  independent  traditions  of  the  Teaching  of  Christ, 
of  equal  antiquity,  and,  so  far  as  that  goes,  of  authority. 
Their  relation  to  each  other  is  that  of  the  lower  to  the 
higher.  The  completely  emancipated  mind,  whether  Jewish 
or  heathen,  is  represented  in  the  tradition  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  This  I  believe,  barring  many  literary  defects  or 
crudities  in  its  form,  is  the  higher  and  truer  presentation 
of  the  Person  of  Christ.  The  other  and  lower  tradition 
saw  in  Him  a  sage,  and  worked  up  its  presentation  of  His 
teaching  regarding  Himself  accordingly,  but  with  many 
passages  which  point  to  the  higher  conception.  .  .  . 
St.  Paul  therefore  did  not  originate  in  a  mental  process 
this  way  of  looking  at  Christ  and  His  teaching.  He  rather 
illustrates  the  process  by  which  one  reached  it  from  Juda- 
ism. He  never  really  got  hold  of  this  higher  conception 
as  the  Fourth  Gospel,  nor  did  he  retain  it  as  consistently. 
His  value  lies  in  making  the  bridge  between  them.  ...  I 
do  not  find  that  Clement  made  any  use  of  St.  Paul.  He 
has  nothing  to  say  of  him  personally.  He  does  not  seem 
to  be  aware  that  he  owes  anything  to  him.  But  he  does 
use  the  Fourth  Gospel  constantly,  and  all  his  thought  is 
only  its  reproduction  and  enlargement.  It  is  much  the 
same  with  Origen,  though  there  I  cannot  speak  so  positively. 
.  .  .  The  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Alexandrian  theology 


MYSTICISM 


!°5 


are  alike  inexplicable  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Tubingen 
School,  which  dismisses  them  as  the  product  of  mysticism. 
.  .  .  There  are  in  every  writer  words  used  freely  but 
never  defined,  which  represent  the  unexplored  regions  of 
his  own  mind.  By  means  of  these  words  he  disposes  of,  or 
relegates  to  obscurity,  all  the  difficulties  which  he  cannot 
explain.  It  is  strange  that  the  word  which  of  all  others 
most  needs  denning  —  the  word  which  has  never  been 
denned  —  should  be  rattled  off  with  such  flippant  ease,  as 
if,  whatever  theologians  or  others  did  not  know,  there  was 
one  thing  which  all  did  know  and  understand  without 
definition,  and  that  was  mysticism.  I  noticed  it  again  in 
Pfleiderer.  The  word  turns  up  wherever  there  is  necessity 
for  burying  the  unknown.  .  .  .  There  is  the  same  ob- 
jection against  the  word  poetry.  We  use  it  freely  to  cover 
the  unanalysed  parts  of  thought  or  experience.  ...  I 
object  to  taking  refuge  in  these  words.  They  do  not 
help.  They  retard  us  in  any  effort  to  get  at  the  bottom 
of  things." 

Those  who  did  not  know  Hegel  well,  often  thought  Dr. 
Allen  an  Hegelian.  He  valued  Hegel  to  a  degree.  In 
this  same  letter  he  touched  upon  Hegel.  "Hegel's  ten- 
dency," he  said,  "if  unchecked,  would  be  to  hamper  the 
mind  and  stereotype  the  process  at  some  point  as  final,  so 
that  all  truth  should  be  enclosed  in  the  formula  for  this 
world  and  for  the  world  to  come.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  tendency  of  regarding  it  as  subjective  is  to  lead  to 
scepticism  as  to  any  reality  corresponding  with  our  thought. 
The  mind  is  free,  to  be  sure,  and  progress  the  law  of  its 
action,  but  all  this  goes  for  nothing,  without  the  infusion 
of  something  of  Hegel's  spirit,  that  we  are  in  contact  with 
realicy  by  our  thought." 

At  the  end  of  the  summer  Dr.  Allen  wrote  his  mother: 
"We  were  all  reluctant  to  leave  Boxford.  The  children 
would  much  prefer  to  live  there  all  the  year  round,  so  they 
say.    They  have  had  a  small  piece  of  ground  where  they 


106  FAME 

have  played  at  farming,  with  the  houses  and  barns  and 
farming  tools.  The  thing  has  attracted  a  good  deal  of 
attention  as  something  quite  remarkable  in  the  history  of 
child-life,  and  we  have  had  a  call  from  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall 
of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  who  came  up  from  Boston 
on  purpose  to  see  it  and  if  possible  get  it  photographed. 
He  thought  I  ought  to  write  an  account  of  it  for  The  Cen- 
tury Magazine,  and  have  it  illustrated  with  photographs. 
I  may  do  it  another  year  perhaps."  He  did  not  write  the 
article,  but  Dr.  Hall  wrote  a  monograph  upon  it,  called 
The  Story  of  a  Sand- pile.1 

John  Fiske  gave  The  Continuity  a  chance  to  find  those 
who  read  his  popular  philosophy  by  quoting  it  at  length 
in  his  Idea  of  God.  "He  reproduces  the  greater  part  of 
my  argument,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote  gratefully  to  his  mother, 
"treating  my  book  as  if  it  were  a  final  authority." 

But  all  books  were  forgotten  in  a  great  sorrow.  "The 
chief  event  with  us  here  in  Cambridge,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote, 
December  13,  "is  the  death  of  Dr.  Mulford.  We  shall 
miss  him  greatly.  He  usually  spent  two  or  three  evenings 
each  week  in  my  study.  He  was  the  most  interesting  man 
I  ever  knew.  We  all  went  out  to  Concord  for  the  inter- 
ment —  a  spot  not  far  from  where  Emerson  is  buried." 

Early  in  1884  the  Rev.  William  Lawrence  had  come  from 
his  parish  in  Lawrence  to  be  a  professor  in  the  School;  and 
this  fall,  1885,  his  father,  a  trustee  who  had  done  much  to 
make  the  School  efficient,  died. 

In  January,  1886,  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  his  mother:  "I 
think  I  sent  you  a  Churchman  with  the  notice  that  the 
Lord  Bishop  of  Rochester  has  recommended  my  Conti- 
nuity to  the  clergy  of  his  diocese.  He  is  one  of  the  most 
delightful  and  Evangelical  of  the  English  prelates.  I  have 
also  been  told  that  the  Professor  of  Church  History  in  the 
New  York  General  Seminary,  who  is  the  stiffest  of  High 
Churchmen,  recently  gave  an  account  of  The  Continuity 

*New  York:  E.  L.  Kellogg  &  Co.,  1897. 


SENSE  OF  TRAGEDY  107 

and  recommended  the  book  to  his  class.  ...  I  have 
been  elected  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society,  which  I  regard  as  a  very  high  honour.  It  is 
a  society  nearly  a  hundred  years  old,  and  its  membership 
is  the  cream  of  Boston.  These  are  my  honours.  They 
would  be  worth  nothing,  if  there  were  no  one  at  home  to 
write  them  to."  To  his  mother,  sister,  and  brother,  who 
loved  him  better  than  themselves,  he  told  without  reserve 
all  that  came  to  him :  he  knew  that  they  would  rejoice  and 
care,  more  than  he  himself.  There  was  no  vanity  in  him, 
whatever  else  his  faults  were.  One  of  his  old  friends  at 
the  Church  of  the  Ascension,  happening  on  a  photograph 
of  him,  was  moved  to  write  a  letter  this  very  day.  "What 
a  wonderful  art  is  photography!"  wrote  Mr.  J.  W.  Preston; 
"the  passing  sentiment,  the  thought,  the  word  of  the 
moment  caught  and  fixed  for  ever!  The  sight  of  your 
picture  brings  the  tears  to  my  eyes.  I  think  I  perceive  a 
shade  of  sadness  upon  it;  and  now  that  I  think  about  it, 
it  seems  to  me  that  when  in  repose  or  in  thought,  there  is 
an  expression  of  melancholy  on  your  face.  The  gaze  pro- 
duced in  me  a  sort  of  regretful  memory,  a  yearning  which 
I  cannot  disclose."  These  words  of  the  good  friend  are 
true.  There  was  all  through  his  peaceful  life,  happy  as  it 
certainly  was,  a  strain  of  sadness,  which  the  sorrows  could 
not  explain.  He  was  light-hearted,  a  Grecian,  like  his 
beloved  Clement;  but  the  sternness  and  coldness  of  New 
England  gave  him  a  sense  of  the  tragedy  in  life. 

During  the  year  1886  most  of  the  more  elaborate  reviews 
of  The  Continuity  appeared.  Both  in  America  and  in 
England  the  reviews  were  long,  and  were  for  the  most  part 
respectful.  There  were  only  two  or  three  bitter  attacks  upon 
the  book,  and  these  were  by  partisans,  on  the  one  side  by 
Unitarians  and  on  the  other  by  one  or  two  Hard  Church- 
men, as  Dr.  Allen  called  them  —  not  High  Churchmen, 
for  High  Churchmen  found  too  much  in  the  book  to  be 
thankful   for.    His   old    teacher,    Dr.    Egbert   Smyth   of 


108  FAME 

Andover,  reviewed  it  critically  in  The  Andover  Review,  find- 
ing, with  a  good  deal  of  justice,  that  St.  Augustine  had 
been  badly  used.  Moreover,  he  pointed  out,  whatever 
Clement's  excellence,  he  never  dominated  the  East  as 
Augustine  dominated  the  West. 

Dr.  Allen  was  always  sensitive  to  criticism,  and  the 
Andover  article  was  the  subject  of  many  long  letters 
between  the  Allen  brothers.  "Smyth  seems  to  think,'* 
said  Dr.  Allen,  "that  the  Greek  Theology  went  on  develop- 
ing to  the  time  of  Basil  and  Chrysostom.  I  think  it  began 
to  deteriorate  from  the  time  of  Clement.  Its  only  creative 
work  after  Clement  was  to  fix  an  intellectual  statement 
of  the  Person  of  Christ.  But  the  very  fact  of  the  con- 
troversy with  the  Arians,  and  the  necessity  of  emphasizing 
one  truth,  was  to  give  a  twist  to  Christian  thought.  None 
of  them  have  the  symmetry  of  Clement,  not  even  Athana- 
sius.  He  began  to  admire  asceticism,  as  had  Origen  before 
him.  As  for  Basil  and  Chrysostom,  they  were  preachers 
and  rhetoricians  and  administrators,  and  not  creative 
theologians.  Smyth  thinks  that  Clement  did  not  sustain 
the  same  relation  to  Greek  Theology  that  Augustine  did  to 
Latin.  I  have  said  that  Clement  was  almost  forgotten  in 
consequence  of  the  great  controversy  on  the  Trinity. 
But  to  the  eye  of  thought,  he  was  its  founder.  Greek 
Theology  never  departed  so  widely  from  his  attitude  as 
mediaeval  thought  did  from  Augustine." 

While  the  adverse,  unsympathetic  criticisms  were  ap- 
pearing, he  recognized  that  he  must  not  enter  the  fray; 
for  that,  he  said,  would  be  only  to  kick  up  a  dust;  but  he 
meditated  making  a  reply  in  a  general  way  in  another  book, 
which  he  would  call  The  Spirit  of  Worship.  "My  plan," 
he  said  to  his  brother,  in  November,  1885,  "would  lead 
me  to  review  the  history  from  the  point  of  view  of  Christian 
feeling  and  instinct,  the  unformulated  consciousness,  as  it 
seeks  expression  in  worship,  ritual,  etc.,  as  compared  with 
formal  theology.    You  asked  me  in  one  of  your  letters 


THE  INCARNATION  109 

whether  I  was  not  unjust  in  making  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  appear  for  the  first  time  so  late  as  Anselm.  I 
should  say  not  from  the  standpoint  of  formal  theology. 
But  in  liturgies  it  came  much  earlier,  indeed  as  early  as 
there  were  liturgies  at  all.  But  the  idea  is  still  general  and 
vague  until  Anselm  elevates  it  to  a  theological  principle. 
Anselm  marks,  to  my  mind,  a  decided  advance,  and  yet 
a  decided  retrogression.  He  made  Atonement  as  a  theo- 
logical principle  take  the  place  of  the  Incarnation  in  a 
formal  way.  In  this  sense  he  marks  the  mediaeval  revolu- 
tion in  theology. 

"The  Incarnation  was  to  Greek  Theology  the  primary 
truth,  the  one  representative,  all-inclusive  principle  of 
Christianity.  God  and  man,  heaven  and  earth,  the  human 
and  the  divine,  were  shown  or  revealed  as  united  and 
reconciled  by  the  Incarnation.  This  was  the  one  great 
positive  truth  or  aspect  of  Christianity.  That  God  could 
so  enter  humanity  was  a  fruitful  idea,  from  which  every- 
thing must  be  deduced  and  by  it  regulated.  But  —  there 
appears,  almost  from  the  first,  the  negative  effort  to  set 
forth  and  impressively  realize  to  the  imagination  and  to 
the  feeling  what  that  condition  of  the  world  and  humanity 
was  from  which  Christ  had  redeemed  it  by  the  Incarnation. 
For,  until  that  was  done,  it  would  be  impossible  to  hold 
clearly  and  intelligently  to  the  Incarnation.  This  is  the 
Rhetorical  aspect  therefore  of  the  subject  —  so  to  conceive 
and  represent  to  the  congregation  the  negative  aspect, 
the  condition  in  which  Christ  found  the  world  by  sin,  and 
also  the  individual,  as  to  enable  a  man  to  appreciate  the 
full  meaning  of  the  great  positive  truth  of  the  Incarnation." 

But  the  book  never  was  written;  for,  within  three 
months,  circumstances  were  impelling  Dr.  Allen  to  a  task 
which  was  to  lead  at  length  to  a  book  of  a  quite  different 
sort.  Washington's  Birthday,  1886,  he  wrote  to  his 
mother:  "I  have  been  much  preoccupied  the  last  few 
weeks  with  the  commemorative  sermon  on  Mulford.     I 


no  FAME 

delivered  it  last  Thursday  evening  before  a  congregation 
consisting  very  much  of  clergy  of  different  bodies,  and  a 
good  many  representative  Cambridge  people.  We  had 
just  been  having  an  anniversary,  the  250th,  of  the  founding 
of  the  First  Church  in  Cambridge,  with  much  glorification 
of  the  Puritans.  I  took  the  occasion  to  speak  a  word  for 
the  Church  of  England,  which  I  think  surprised  some.   .   .  . 

"I  went  to  Andover  a  few  weeks  ago  to  officiate  one 
Sunday  for  the  Rector  in  the  old  Episcopal  church.  I 
was  greatly  taken  aback  on  going  into  church  to  find 
Professor  Park  in  a  prominent  seat  in  front.  But  the 
congregation  was  greatly  moved  also,  for  he  had  not  been 
there  before  —  within  the  memory  of  a  generation.  In 
the  afternoon  I  went  to  call  on  him,  and  spent  several 
hours.     He  was  very  interesting." 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  sermon  on  Mulford  was  not 
printed  exactly  as  preached;  but  Dr.  Allen  withheld  it, 
wishing  to  make  it  worthier  his  friend.  Then  as  he  worked, 
he  saw  Mulford  as  the  end  of  the  stream  of  New  England 
Theology,  and  he  began  to  think  of  a  book,  dedicated  to 
him,  which  should  give  a  history  of  New  England  Theology. 
This  was  a  great  task,  and  required  long  time.  And  then 
his  friend,  Mr.  Scudder,  came  in  with  a  request  —  but 
all  this  will  appear  in  due  course.  It  is  now  sufficient  to 
say  that  the  only  printing  of  the  sermon  was  a  long 
extract  in  The  Christian  Union  for  March  n,  1886. 

In  painting  Mulford  he  was  unconsciously  giving,  in 
many  instances,  his  own  portrait.  "He  treated  his  stu- 
dents with  reverence,"  ran  the  sermon,  "as  if  there  were  in 
each  an  idea  of  God  incorporated,  which  could  be  safely 
entrusted  to  him,  which  it  was  most  important  that  he 
should  know.  If  he  was  interested  in  a  man,  he  never  let 
him  go  until  he  felt  that  he  had  read  him  and  knew  all  that 
was  best  in  him.  .  .  .  He  idealized  his  friends  and  the 
world  about  him,  so  that  life  seemed  to  glow  with  beauty 
and  divineness.    And  yet  it  was  not  so  much  that  he 


MULFORD  in 

idealized  as  that  he  believed  that  the  world  and  humanity 
had  been  already  idealized  through  the  Incarnation. 

"  How  he  watched  and  studied  the  world  of  thought  for 
the  recognition  of  the  great  principles  in  which  he  was 
interested!  He  was  constantly  on  the  lookout,  on  the 
tower  of  observation,  scanning  the  horizon  as  eagerly  as 
an  astronomer  the  heavens,  and  always  for  the  fuller 
confirmation  of  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe.  .  .  . 
Things  that  others  would  have  passed  by  as  not  worth 
attention  he  discerned  as  significant  symptoms.  .  .  . 
What  you  imparted  to  him  he  returned,  enriched  in  the 
process  of  having  passed  through  his  own  mind.  .  .  . 
It  was  a  full  life,  a  most  real  life,  seeing  that  it  was  lived 
in  the  consciousness  of  God." 

June  23  found  the  Allen  family  established  for  the  sum- 
mer in  B oxford.  The  school  year  was  marked  by  the 
election  of  Governor  Rice  as  a  trustee,  and  Mr.  Kellner  as 
an  instructor  in  Hebrew. 

In  October,  the  Boxford  days  past,  he  reported  to  Mr. 
Scudder  the  results  of  his  summer  study:  "I  have  been 
obliged  to  abandon  the  Mulford  memorial.  The  subject 
has  grown  upon  me  till  I  have  made  my  work  a  critical 
review  of  American  Theology,  with  the  inward  connections 
between  the  great  leaders,  from  Jonathan  Edwards  down 
to  Bushnell  and  Parker,  including  the  rise  of  Unitarian- 
ism.  The  difficulty  is  how  to  connect  the  work  with 
Mulford:  I  have  thought  that  I  should  inscribe  it  to  his 
memory.  .  .  .  Half  of  the  book  is  written,  I  should  say, 
and  I  think  it  might  be  ready  by  spring.  I  should  like  to 
know  if  the  plan  commends  itself  to  you." 

"I  have  been  very  busy  getting  settled,"  he  wrote  to  his 
mother,  October  7;  "  and  to  our  surprise  we  find  ourselves 
taking  boarders.  Professor  Palmer,  an  old  friend  of  mine, 
asked  if  he  could  come  and  take  his  meals  with  us  for  a 
few  weeks,  as  he  has  no  home  of  his  own,  but  said  he  would 
not  come  unless  he  were  allowed  to  pay.    And  now  an 


ii2  FAME 

Annex  girl,  a  daughter  of  Professor  Gardiner  of  the  Berke- 
ley Divinity  School,  has  come  very  much  in  the  same  way. 
We  had  plenty  of  room  and  there  was  no  reason  why  we 
should  decline  except  that  our  pride  stood  a  little  in  the 
way.    That  we  swallowed." 

Then  came  an  event,  crowning  the  approval  of  The  Con- 
tinuity of  Christian  Thought.  On  the  greatest  day  of  Har- 
vard, when  representative  men  were  gathered  from  both 
Europe  and  America  to  keep  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  College,  Dr.  Allen  received 
the  doctor's  degree.  "It  was  a  grand  occasion,"  he  wrote 
his  mother,  November  15.  "I  stood  up  for  my  degree 
before  the  President  of  the  United  States  who  sat  only  a 
few  feet  from  me,  with  most  of  the  members  of  his  cabinet 
—  also  our  great  Senator  Hoar,  and  all  the  distinguished 
scholars  whom  Harvard  could  muster,  among  whom  were 
Professor  Park  and  President  McCosh.  The  oration  was 
by  James  Russell  Lowell  and  the  poem  by  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes;  and  both  were  fine.  But  it  was  a  thing  one 
must  see  and  hear  to  appreciate."  A  little  later  he  wrote: 
"  The  Church  papers  are  disgusted  with  Harvard  because 
she  conferred  no  honorary  degrees  on  any  of  the  prelates 
of  the  Church.  They  hardly  seem  to  think  that  I  am 
worth  mentioning,  and  their  tone  is  one  of  grievance  that 
the  Church  has  been  snubbed.  But  it  is  just  as  well  that 
the  Church  should  be  told  that,  in  the  great  world,  official 
dignity  does  not  go  for  everything." 

When,  in  1904,  an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  in  this 
country  for  the  first  time,  he  preached  in  St.  John's  Chapel, 
the  chapel  of  the  School.  In  the  robing-room  Bishop 
Lawrence  presented  the  different  members  of  the  faculty, 
and  the  Archbishop  made  his  formal  bow  to  each  of  them. 
As  Dr.  Allen  moved  away  to  put  on  his  surplice,  the  Bishop 
said,  "That  is  Dr.  Allen  who  wrote  The  Continuity  of 
Christian  Thought:'  "Is  that  Allen  of  Continuity?  "  the 
Archbishop   said,  and   went  instantly   over   to  him    and 


THE  CONTINUITY  113 

shook  hands  with  him.     It  was  a  symbolic  act  of  English 
appreciation  of  an  American  contribution  to  theology. 

Many  thousand  copies  of  The  Continuity  of  Christian 
Thought  have  been  sold.  A  good  many  conservative 
critics  hold  it  to  be  the  most  significant  book  of  theology 
thus  far  written  by  an  American.  It  would  be  easy  to 
point  out  its  limitations.  It  is  more  difficult  to  measure 
the  scope  of  the  work  it  has  done,  and  is  still  doing,  towards 
a  constructive  and  solid  faith  in  all  that  is  most  lovable 
and  strong  in  life.  "What  I  got  from  it,"  wrote  a  young 
man,1  "was  a  point  of  view  and  an  historical  method.  It 
taught  me  to  see  the  Christian  movement  in  the  large, 
and  it  gave  me  my  first  notion  of  a  difference  of  type  in 
Christian  religious  thinking." 

1  Rev.  J.  E.  Frame,  Professor  at  Union  Seminary. 


CHAPTER  X 

A   THEOLOGICAL    PORTRAIT 

1887-1889 

ON  a  February  evening  at  a  meeting  of  the  Ministers' 
Club  at  Dr.  J.  H.  Thayer's,  Dr.  Allen  read  a  paper  on 
"Jonathan  Edwards  and  the  New  England  Theology."  In 
the  evolution  of  his  work  on  American  Theology  it  was  an 
indication  that  he  would  have  to  devote  much  space  to 
Jonathan  Edwards.  Dr.  George  A.  Gordon,  prevented 
from  coming,  wrote  at  once  his  disappointment,  for  he  had, 
he  said,  been  feeling  for  some  time  "how  much  service 
might  be  rendered  by  some  competent  scholar  to  Christian 
thought  by  a  sympathetic  study  and  interpretation  of  New 
England  Theology." 

"I  was  disappointed,"  answered  Dr.  Allen,  "when  I  did 
not  see  you  there.  .  .  .  My  paper  on  Edwards  was 
scarcely  more  than  an  introduction  to  the  subject.  But 
it  is  part  of  a  plan  to  try  to  estimate  sympathetically  the 
leaders  of  the  New  England  Theology,  to  show  what  they 
did  and  what  they  failed  to  do,  and  why ;  also  to  connect 
them  with  the  stream  of  later  history.  I  have  been  study- 
ing them  for  some  time:  indeed,  since  I  was  at  Andover 
under  Park,  I  have  always  kept  the  thing  before  me. 
My  admiration  of  the  men  grows  as  I  become  better 
acquainted  with  them,  and  it  has  been  a  grand  thing  for 
New  England,  I  think,  that  it  has  had  this  substratum 
beneath  the  workings  of  its  later  thought.  It  constitutes 
a  promise  of  an  exceptional  distinction  in  her  future  history. 
Not  that  I  like  or  accept  much  of  the  New  England  Theol- 

114 


NEW  ENGLAND  THEOLOGY  115 

ogy,  for  it  is  often  obnoxious  and  even  repulsive  in  its 
formal  statements.  But  its  motif  is  good  and  makes  the 
only  foundation  for  religion.  These  men  were  the  prophets 
of  an  age  in  the  past  who  had  their  faces  towards  the  light, 
though  they  died  without  the  sight  of  that  which  they 
laboured  and  longed  for.  For  Jonathan  Edwards  I  have 
affection  as  well  as  admiration. 

"But  I  distrust  my  power  of  doing  the  thing  as  it  ought 
to  be  done.  I  need  criticism  at  every  point  and  I  ought  to 
get  as  much  as  I  can  before  I  appear  to  the  public,  rather 
than  to  have  it  afterwards.  For  this  reason  I  wanted 
yours." 

The  spring  of  1887  his  mother  was  growing  very  feeble, 
but  she  kept  vigilant  watch  over  both  Dr.  Allen's  health 
and  his  theology.  She  urged  him  to  work  less,  and  to 
eat  a  light  supper;  and  she  begged  him  not  to  become 
entangled  with  the  Andover  troubles.  "You  need  not 
worry,"  he  replied  assuringly,  "  about  my  getting  mixed 
up  with  the  Andover  heretics.  I  am  all  right.  Some  of 
the  bishops  in  our  own  Church  might  have  been  glad  to 
see  me  burn  as  a  heretic,  but  since  my  Lord  Bishop  of 
Rochester  has  commended  me,  there  is  no  danger.  He 
has  always  borne  the  reputation  of  an  especially  sound 
divine.  If  I  ever  get  my  book  done  on  the  New  England 
Theology,  it  will  be  an  effort  to  show  the  Unitarians  and 
the  Universalists  how  wrong  they  are,  and  that  they  had 
better  give  up  and  come  back.  As  to  second  probation, 
the  poor  Andover  men  have,  I  think,  made  a  blunder. 
But  it  is  not  likely  that  anything  will  be  done." 

"The  School  closed  on  Wednesday,"  he  wrote,  June  17, 
"  I  attended  the  Commencement  here  in  the  morning,  and 
in  the  afternoon  went  to  Andover  and  delivered  my 
address  on  Christian  Union." 

A  contemporary  report  said  that  at  a  turn  of  thought  in 
the  address  the  men  were  profoundly  impressed.  "It  is," 
said  Dr.  Allen  at  this  place,  "within  the  range  of  imagina- 


n6  A  THEOLOGICAL  PORTRAIT 

tion  to  conceive  some  powerful  motive  whose  working 
would  hasten  the  process  of  Christian  unity.  A  great 
sentiment  may  take  possession  of  Protestant  Christendom 
which  would  imperatively  demand  that  all  artificial  restric- 
tions be  dropped  in  the  presence  of  some  grave  danger. 
It  may  be  that  beneath  the  present  desire  for  unity  there 
is  lurking  some  instinctive  sense  of  impending  evil  which 
will  try  men's  souls,  as  the  barbarian  invasion  of  which  we 
read  in  history.  Under  such  circumstances  we  shall  realize 
that  our  strength  lies  in  union.  We  should  then  realize 
that  the  strongest  bond  which  can  unite  is  our  common 
humanity  for  which  Christ  died,  the  only  basis  for  the 
fellowship  of  Christian  love.  It  is  vain  to  think  that 
lasting  union  or  organic  unity  can  be  reached  by  ignoring 
or  suppressing  theological  distinctions.  A  truer  method 
would  compel  each  denomination  to  review  its  origin  and 
career  in  order  to  the  better  knowledge  of  its  work  and 
place  in  history,  and  then  in  the  interest  of  the  same 
purpose  to  study  the  history  of  other  Churches." 

In  September  Miss  Allen  wrote  that  her  mother  was 
constantly  falling,  and  would  probably  have  to  give  up 
trying  to  walk;  and,  as  usual  in  times  of  trouble,  she 
wanted  her  son  Alexander.  He  went  as  soon  as  he  could; 
and  he  wrote  cheerful  letters,  adding  the  life  of  Cambridge 
to  the  quiet  of  Rehoboth.  "The  School  opens  with  larger 
numbers  than  ever  before  in  its  history:  there  will  be 
nearly  twenty  new  men  and  they  are  a  bright  looking, 
gentlemanly  set  of  fellows.  So  I  do  not  think  that  The 
Continuity  has  hurt  the  School,  but  rather  helped  it." 

This  fall  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin,  and  Company 
warned  Dr.  Allen  that  they  intended  to  issue  a  series  of 
volumes  under  the  title,  American  Religious  Leaders. 
"Unquestionably,"  they  said,  "the  foremost  man  in  theol- 
ogy is  Jonathan  Edwards.  We  desire  the  series  to  begin 
with  him  and  to  have  you  write  the  volume." 

His  friend,  Professor  Palmer,  was  disgusted.     Speaking 


DEATH  OF  LYDIA  ALLEN  117 

to  a  common  friend,  Mr.  Palmer  said:  "Allen  ought  to 
have  carried  out  his  original  plan  and  given  us  the  history 
of  Puritan  Theology.  He  could  have  done  it  as  no  one 
else.  He  had  read  all  of  Emmons,  Hopkins,  and  the  rest. 
Then  Scudder  got  hold  of  him  and  begged  him  to  finish  it 
all  up  in  Edwards!  Allen's  lazy  streak  got  hold  of  him, 
and  he  consented."  The  accusation  is  probably  just 
—  there  was  the  "lazy  streak."  Writing  to  Mr.  Taylor, 
while  at  work  on  The  Continuity,  Dr.  Allen  had  admitted, 
"I  am  aware  of  a  strange  reluctance  every  now  and  then 
to  buckle  down  to  my  task."  On  the  other  hand,  with  his 
exceedingly  nervous  and  sensitive  temperament,  it  may 
be  that  he  could  not  have  done  his  work  had  he  not  dropped 
theology  at  times,  to  go  about  the  house  setting  glass  in 
the  windows  and  putting  buttons  on  the  doors;  and  at 
other  times,  even  when  he  clung  to  his  art,  to  reduce  the 
size  of  his  canvas.  His  friends  often  felt  that  he  as  well 
as  they  regretted  that  he  had  not  persisted  in  the  more 
audacious  undertaking.  Indeed  he  sometimes  admitted 
it.  However  this  all  may  have  been,  it  was  now  definitely 
determined  that  the  end  of  the  sermon  on  Mulford  should 
be  a  biography  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 

In  February,  1888,  his  mother's  increasing  frailty  bore 
her  out  of  this  life.  As  after  his  father's  death,  he  was 
prostrated  with  grief.  The  last  visit  before  the  fatal  illness, 
the  solicitude  for  his  health  had  gone,  and  he  knew  that 
the  end  was  near.  "I  went  away  in  the  rain,"  he  said, 
"and  she  never  spoke  of  it."  The  letters  chronicling,  with 
a  playful  conceit,  his  achievements,  whether  petty  or  large, 
now  stop:  there  was  no  one  who  would  so  exult  in  their 
telling.     His  sister  now  came  to  live  with  him  for  a  year. 

In  August  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Scudder  who  was  urging 
him  to  send  copy  for  the  new  book:  "There  are  hundreds 
of  ministers  in  the  Congregational  and  Presbyterian 
Churches  who  could  easily  point  out  my  mistakes,  if  I 
allowed  myself  to  be  careless  or  to  speak  at  random.     I 


n8  A  THEOLOGICAL  PORTRAIT 

have  had  to  read  over  Jonathan's  very  voluminous  works 
several  times.  All  the  time  that  I  have  been  writing  I 
have  felt  that  Dr.  Park's  awful  eyes  were  on  me,  glowering 
indignantly  at  my  presumption  in  trespassing  on  his  pre- 
serves. It  is  in  his  power  to  kill  the  book,  unless  it  is 
carefully  done.  He  knows  more  about  Edwards  than  any 
other  man  living.  But  on  the  other  hand  I  have  not  con- 
fidence in  his  honesty,  and  I  have  in  my  own.  I  have 
not  attempted  to  excite  admiration  for  Edwards,  nor  to 
condemn  his  theology  as  execrable.  I  have  taken  it  for 
granted  that  there  is  a  deep  interest  in  the  man  and  his 
work:  and  I  have  made  it  my  aim  to  tell  what  he  thought 
and  how  he  came  to  think  as  he  did.  I  have  tried  to  write 
a  conciliatory  book  and  one  which  the  Puritans  would  feel 
obliged  to  read.  It  is  one  good  thing  about  them  that 
they  are  generally  willing  to  read." 

March  15,  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  "  Finished  Life  of  Jona- 
than Edwards,  and  dated  the  Preface  March  22,  1889  — 
Bessie's  Birthday."  "My  impression,"  he  said,  "is  that 
the  book  is  much  improved  by  the  revision."  It  was  during 
this  revision  that  he  read  aloud  the  manuscript  —  which 
was  the  occasion  of  family  pride.  Miss  Gardiner  was  now 
a  congenial  member  of  the  family,  a  great  help  to  Mrs. 
Allen,  who,  in  spite  of  radiant  cheerfulness,  had  never 
really  been  well  since  the  desperate  illness  in  1878.  Be- 
cause her  illnesses  were  increasingly  frequent,  there  was 
a  vague  sense  of  dread  of  what  might  befall  —  but  no 
one  spoke  of  that  dread.  The  house  was  always  gay. 
The  boys  talked  freely,  and  Dr.  Allen  averred  that  the 
younger  had  "views."  After  dinner  all  went  directly  to 
the  study  for  half  an  hour  before  the  children  went  to  their 
books.  Though  Jonathan  Edwards  was  in  process,  there 
was  no  sense  of  pressure.  Mrs.  Allen  sat  with  her  work 
and  Dr.  Allen  had  his  after-dinner  pipe  —  and  all  talked. 
"Oh,"  he  would  say,  "this  making  of  books  —  it's  a  dog's 
life."    Then  he  might  read  some  verses  he  cared  for  — 


HOME  LIFE  119 

from  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  or  Matthew  Arnold.  He 
liked  to  read  The  Angel  in  the  House.  Then  turning  to 
the  Bible,  "That  is  beautiful,"  he  would  say,  "that 
vision  of  St.  Stephen  —  standing  on  the  right  hand  of 
God." 

Once  when  he  said  to  one  of  his  pupils  that  what  Luther 
stood  for  was  the  right  of  manhood,  of  freedom,  the  student 
replied,  "Yes,  but  he  couldn't  have  stood  so,  unless  justi- 
fication by  faith  had  been  the  marrow  of  his  life."  And 
Dr.  Allen  smiled,  with  a  searching  look,  and  said,  "Do  you 
think  so?"  It  was  such  a  reply  as  he  loved  to  get:  it  was 
for  such  response  that  he  taught.  To  his  own  sons  while 
they  still  were  boys  he  found  it  hard  to  talk  of  what  he 
most  longed  to  speak.  With  great  effort  and  real  distress 
he  said  one  day,  "I  cannot  talk  to  the  boys  of  religious 
things."  To  Mr.  Taylor  he  said  about  this  time,  "I 
don't  get  all  the  money  I  should  like  to  have,  but  I  forget 
these  sublunary  considerations  in  the  pursuit  of  an  idea 
which  may  be  a  delusion,  but  which  is  profoundly  inter- 
esting, and  gives  point  to  life."  Again  speaking  of  the 
sense  of  calling  as  forming  a  man's  life,  he  added,  as  if  to 
himself,  "And  it  keeps  a  man  pure."  He  did  not  like 
to  be  called  prosperous:  he  liked  humility.  He  felt  the 
dangers  of  prosperity. 

Such  parts  of  the  morning  as  were  not  devoted  to  lectures, 
he  gave  to  his  reading  and  writing;  and  generally  most  of 
his  afternoons  and  evenings  besides.  On  his  return  from 
Chapel  and  before  his  first  lecture  he  read  his  news- 
paper. He  rarely  put  it  down  without  noting  something 
to  which  indirectly  or  directly  he  wished  to  call  the  atten- 
tion of  his  classes.  Most  often  this  was  accomplished  by 
a  mere  allusion.  One  morning  he  said  to  the  Senior  Class, 
in  passing,  "I  notice  that  at  the  New  York  Church  Club 

last  night  Mr.  announced  that  he  and  a  few  other 

good  laymen  in  New  York  were  about  to  set  out  to  redeem 
the  world.    It's   all  very  interesting  —  but  I  had  under- 


120  A  THEOLOGICAL  PORTRAIT 

stood  that  the  world  had  been  redeemed  —  some  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago."  He  kept  always  a  pile  of  books  open 
on  his  table,  one  over  another.  He  might  not  be  reading 
all  of  them,  but  there  was  in  each  some  passage  to  which 
he  intended  to  refer.  He  read  long  books  thoroughly  when 
he  believed  them  worth  it;  he  read  many  books  to  dig  out 
here  or  there  the  valuable  bit  which  might  be  hard  for  any 
but  one  with  a  trained  scent  to  run  down.  He  did  not 
disdain  short  cuts.  If  he  wanted  Wyclif,  for  instance, 
he  would  take  Lechler's  book,  consulting  Wyclif  first- 
hand if  he  needed  the  context  for  a  quotation.  He  made 
constant  use  of  the  Britannica.  He  had  a  robust  confidence 
that  he  could  tell  when  a  man's  judgment  was  accurate. 
When  a  pupil,  choosing  Anselm  for  the  subject  of  a  thesis, 
read  the  correspondence  between  Anselm  and  the  popes 
and  also  the  Latin  life  of  Anselm,  he  made  notes  in  confir- 
mation or  illustration;  but  it  was  the  Cur  Deus  Homo? 
upon  which  he  spent  his  thought.  He  was  on  his  guard 
always  that  he  be  not  entangled  in  details  and  lose  thereby 
the  man's  real  message.  Even  with  a  man  like  Luther, 
he  would  not  sit  down  to  read  everything.  Having  got 
word  from  some  trustworthy  authority  what  was  his  most 
significant  writing  he  would  meditate  this  intensely:  he 
would  not  clog  his  mind  with  what  did  not  belong  to  the 
man's  genuine  self-expression.  When  he  felt  that  a  man 
had  not  before  been  adequately  read,  he  read  everything 
within  reach,  as  in  the  case  of  Edwards.  But  he  believed 
scholarship  a  co-operative  matter,  and  not  a  vocation  for 
accomplishing  a  great  mass  of  independent  reading.  He 
might  have  read  fewer  pages  of  the  "sources"  than  other 
scholars.  To  those  sources  which  he  believed  most  truly 
representative  he  gave  more  hours  of  thought,  and  more 
vigorous  thought,  than  most  men  who  work  with  sources. 
The  early  years  of  teaching  in  Cambridge  were  years  of 
accumulation:  these  years  of  drudgery  had  given  him 
what  he  called  "the  picture."     He  sent  his  pupils  to  the 


THE  DAILY  WALK  121 

Patrologia,  but  warned  them  that  there  was  no  under- 
standing of  one  age  without  the  others. 

At  the  end  of  the  afternoon  he  would  go  out  for  his  walk. 
Ordinarily  he  went  up  North  Avenue,  because  less  fre- 
quented by  people  he  knew.  Sometimes  Professor  Law- 
rence went  with  him,  sometimes  Professor  Palmer,  more 
rarely  Professor  Royce.  Sometimes  a  theological  student 
or  Miss  Gardiner  became  his  companion.  He  was  apt  to 
save  Saturday  afternoons  to  wander  among  the  Boston 
book-shops.  He  liked  to  see  the  titles  of  books  and  arti- 
cles: it  told  him  what  the  world  was  thinking  about. 
Genius  has  been  denned  as  the  infinite  capacity  of  taking 
pains,  and  also  as  the  power  of  making  a  very  little  experi- 
ence reach  an  enormous  way.  Dr.  Allen  could  be  judged 
a  genius  by  both  definitions.  He  read  a  whole  train  of 
historic  thought  in  the  careless  item  of  a  morning  paper, 
and  he  could  also  spend  months  in  reading  Jonathan 
Edwards  from  beginning  to  end,  over  and  over. 

Requests  for  outside  work  poured  in  upon  him.  Presi- 
dent Eliot  wrote  to  him  in  April  asking  him  if  he  would 
take  Professor  Emerton's  courses  at  Harvard  the  next 
year.  This  invitation  he  accepted.  In  May  he  delivered 
before  the  New  York  Church  Club  a  lecture  on  The  Norman 
Period  of  the  British  Church,  which  was  published  the  fol- 
lowing year.  In  response  to  Mrs.  Wharton's  request,  he 
did  the  chapter  in  Dr.  Wharton's  Memoir  on  the  Life  in 
Cambridge.  Even  with  Jonathan  Edwards  done,  these 
were  busy  days. 

Dean  Gray  died  in  August  1889,  and  Dr.  William  Law- 
rence was  chosen  dean  in  his  place.  Edward  Staples 
Drown,  a  brilliant  philosophical  student  at  Harvard  and 
a  recent  graduate  of  the  School,  became  instructor  in 
Theology.  Dr.  Allen  wrote  at  length  of  Dr.  Gray  in  The 
Church  of  To-day.  He  found  Dr.  Gray's  power  in  his 
devotion  to  the  Personal  Christ,  passing  out  of  all  that  was 
narrow  in  the  Old  Evangelical  attitude,  and  retaining  its 


122  A  THEOLOGICAL  PORTRAIT 

warmth  even  in  the  cold  of  New  England,  "inspiring  such 
deep  religious  feeling  into  his  work  as  to  give  it  a  character 
and  charm  of  its  own."  His  appeal  to  the  honour  and 
reason  of  his  students  made  a  large  contribution  to  the 
history  of  the  School.  Dr.  Allen  did  not  forget  to  record 
his  goodness  to  Harvard  students,  to  many  of  whom, 
through  his  own  kindness  and  Mrs.  Gray's,  his  home  became 
both  shelter  and  inspiration.  He  was  a  loving  shepherd 
to  many  souls. 

In  September  Jonathan  Edwards  appeared.  It  was 
instantly  recognized  as  a  thorough  piece  of  work,  a  perma- 
nent book.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  read  it  at  once,  and 
said,  "He  was  an  interesting  old  saint  —  not  so  old  either 
as  some  folks  —  but  he  had  swallowed  a  logical  poker  and 
all  the  devils  in  theology  couldn't  straighten  it  out." 
Phillips  Brooks  came  forward  with  his  praise:  "We  can 
no  longer  talk  of  Edwards  as  a  Babe-damning  Monster. 
He  is  a  true  man  with  terrible  ideas,  but  greater  than 
these  always  and  capable  of  a  redeeming  tenderness  which 
makes  us  love  him  as  we  read.  Love  for  Jonathan 
Edwards  is  a  new  emotion  which  is  worth  the  having." 

An  article  in  The  New  World  marvelled  at  Dr.  Allen's 
studious  care  not  to  poke  fun  at  Edwards,  even  omitting 
vulnerable  sentences.  It  thought  Dr.  Allen  too  consid- 
erately blind  to  humourous  aspects  of  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing. Since  Edwards  believed  children  "infinitely  more 
hateful  than  vipers,"  the  reviewer  found  it  odd  that  "he 
chose  to  warm  eleven  of  these  vipers  in  his  bosom."  The 
reviewer  would  have  marvelled  still  more,  if  he  had  known 
how  amusing  Dr.  Allen  could  have  made  all  these  foibles, 
had  he  not  deliberately  given  himself  with  a  reverent 
intention  to  know  the  very  soul  of  Edwards.  He  could 
not  have  made  light  of  what  in  another  he  might  have  seen 
cause  for  jest.  It  was  perhaps  a  defect  in  Dr.  Allen  that 
in  persons  of  whom  he  thought  very  highly  —  Maurice, 
Edwards,  Brooks  —  it  hurt  him  to  think  of  any  situation 


REVERENCE  FOR  EDWARDS  123 

in  which  they  were  unconsciously  ridiculous.  He  protected 
Edwards  because  he  had  great  reverence  for  his  personality. 
The  most  significant  review  of  the  book  was  by  Professor 
Fairbairn,  of  Oxford,  in  the  London  Spectator}  The 
words  of  Dr.  Allen  quoted  as  most  characteristic  in 
nearly  all  the  reviews  were  these:  "The  great  wrong  which 
Edwards  did,  which  haunts  us  as  an  evil  dream  throughout 
his  writings,  was  to  assert  God  at  the  expense  of  humanity. 
Where  man  should  be,  there  is  only  a  fearful  void.  The 
protests  which  he  has  evoked  have  proclaimed  the  divine- 
ness  of  human  nature,  the  actuality  of  the  redemption  in 
Christ  for  all  the  world." 

1  January  11,  1890. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    APPROACH    OF    A    GREAT    SORROW 

1890-1892 

THE  Harvard  course  on  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
given  in  1889-90,  was  a  decided  success.  Friends 
familiar  with  Dr.  Allen's  gifts  as  a  teacher  of  small  sym- 
pathetic classes  of  divinity  students  wondered  how  far  he 
would  appeal  to  the  more  carnal  minds  of  Harvard  under- 
graduates. Forty-seven  men,  mostly  Seniors,  took  his 
course,  and  were  enthusiastic,  markedly  so  that  man  of 
promise  and  early  death,  Philip  Abbot.  They  gave  to 
him  a  sort  of  discipleship  at  once.  He  gave  to  them 
visions  of  the  purposes  working  out  in  the  history  which 
no  mere  accuracy  could  impart. 

A  large  part  of  his  strength  he  gave  to  old  pupils  and 
strangers  asking  him  for  mental  or  spiritual  help.  One 
letter  was  about  miracles;  another  was  about  the  Trinity; 
another,  about  Robert  Elsmere;  another,  from  a  physician, 
about  the  Virgin  Birth;  and  still  another,  from  a  former 
student  who  was  teaching  in  a  college  where  an  ecclesias- 
tical panic  had  brought  death  to  the  institution.  To  all 
these  letters  he  wrote  grave  and  careful  answers.  Even 
the  strangers  were  apt  to  receive  several  letters;  that 
Faith  in  them  might  grow  through  the  teacher's  explana- 
tions. "That  you  have  made  progress,  I  shall  be  glad  to 
know,"  he  wrote  to  one,  "but  it  is  a  slow  task  and  requires 
the  patience  of  hope.  We  must  believe  that  there  is  a  way 
out  even  when  we  cannot  find  it.  This  is  better  than  to 
acquiesce  in  a  cheap  explanation  or  negation." 

The  Jonathan  Edwards  went  into  a  second  impression  in 

124 


A  NEW  BOOK  125 

January,  and  the  publishers  wrote  that  he  must  make  any 
changes  he  wished  at  once,  since  they  expected  a  third 
impression  to  be  necessary  not  later  than  May.  One  of  the 
Andover  trustees  reviewed  it  spitefully,  using  it  as  a  thin 
veil  through  which  to  glare  at  certain  Andover  professors, 
who  were  then  on  trial.  Dr.  Allen  wrote  Dr.  Smyth  that 
he  would  reply  in  behalf  of  the  Seminary,  but  Dr.  Smyth, 
recognizing  the  chivalry,  forbade  him  to  soil  his  sword  on 
such  an  adversary. 

Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor  early  in  June:  frMy 
year's  work  has  practically  come  to  an  end,  and  I  have  a 
half  feeling  of  freedom.  But  I  suppose  I  shall  be  under 
the  yoke  again  in  some  form  or  other."  His  presentiment 
proved  true.  Immediately  Dr.  Briggs  came  to  ask  him 
to  do  Christian  Institutions  in  The  International  Theologi- 
cal Library.  Dr.  Allen  foresaw  that  such  a  book  would 
require  vast  labour.  The  attraction  was  that  his  method 
of  teaching  had  always  been  to  weave  external  history  into 
institutions  and  doctrines.  Dr.  Gray  had  once  said  that 
the  School  did  not  need  a  course  on  Systematic  Divinity : 
"Allen,"  he  laughed,  "teaches  theology  and  everything 
else."  The  courtesy  and  insistency  of  Dr.  Briggs  com- 
pelled assent,  and  June  24,  he  said  that  he  would  undertake 
the  volume. 

A  great  sorrow  came  this  summer,  in  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Allen's  brother,  Philip  S.  Stone.  "I  never  knew," 
wrote  Dr.  Allen,  "what  a  comfort  Brooks  could  be  until 
the  funeral  of  Philip  Stone.  It  was  a  good  deal  to  ask  of 
him  to  give  up  a  whole  day  to  us,  as  he  had  to  leave  his 
retirement  at  North  Andover  and  come  back  to  the  house 
and  city  which  he  has  deserted.  But  his  presence  was  an 
immense  support  to  the  whole  family.  Life  seemed  to 
resume  its  normal  aspects  under  the  inspiration  of  his 
presence,  voice,  and  manner.  The  words  kept  recurring 
to  me,  'A  man  shall  be  an  hiding  place  from  the  tempest,  a 
covert  from  the  storm  '  (I  do  not  quote  accurately)." 


126  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

In  July  he  wrote  to  Miss  Gardiner:  "So  I  have  finished 
up  Harvard  College  and  the  Annex,  making  another  chap- 
ter closed.  I  think  the  marking  business  alone  will  deter 
me  from  attempting  anything  of  the  kind  again.  Ward- 
ner  was  A  plus,  but  there  was  a  little  fellow  who  was 
desperately  anxious  to  get  A.  He  was  miles  away  from 
W.,  but  he  sent  in  the  most  elaborate  paper  on  the  Council 
of  Trent,  two  or  three  hours'  long,  without  one  particle 
of  original  work.  It  was  so  painfully  and  laboriously 
done  that  I  gave  him  A  minus  with  a  conviction  that 
marks  had  little  significance.  .  .  .  The  only  thing  I 
have  done  has  been  to  read  Marie  Bashkirtseff.  If  you 
haven't  it,  I  will  send  it  to  you  when  the  others  get  through 
with  it.  I  must  confess  that  it  impresses  me  deeply;  I 
was  moved  by  this  self-revelation  of  a  young  girl.  But 
perhaps  I  am  too  much  of  a  humanist.  I  mentioned  it  to 
Brooks  and  to  Palmer,  and  they  both  rather  sniffed  at  it. 
But  they  look  at  things  from  the  pedagogical  point  of  view. 
I  suppose  Palmer  found  no  place  for  it  in  his  ethics.  But 
it  has  a  place  in  the  philosophy  of  history." 

To  a  pupil  he  said  a  few  days  later:  "One  of  the  blessed 
things  is  waiting  for  a  mission  when  one  is  still  uncertain 
where  to  turn.  The  calling  slowly  appears.  One  of  the 
most  impressive  things  about  Loyola,  whom  we  had  so 
much  of  last  year,  was  those  years  when  he  seemed  to  be 
drifting,  not  knowing  exactly  what  he  wanted  to  do,  only 
that  he  must  do  something.  So  it  was  with  Luther,  and 
so  it  was  with  John  Calvin.  .  .  .  You  ask  me  if  I  still 
abide  by  the  attitude  I  took  in  The  Continuity.  Do  I  still 
think  that  'with  Augustine's  help  the  mediaeval  Church, 
got  on  a  wrong  track?  I  not  only  think  so;  I  am  sure  of  it. 
What  I  congratulate  myself  on  having  done  is  to  make  a 
protest  against  the  historical  optimism  which  runs  through 
so  much  historical  work  as  if  there  could  be  nothing  wrong 
in  history,  as  though  the  evolution  moved  on  with  fatalistic 
accuracy  and  no  attempt  must  be  made  to  do  anything  but 


MEANING  OF  CONTINUITY  127 

grow.  But  I  had  also  in  mind  from  beginning  to  end  the 
Hegelian  principle  of  contradiction  —  the  continuity  as 
including  the  contradiction  which  has  puzzled  so  many, 
and  made  them  feel  as  though  I  had  shown  only  the  dis- 
continuity. But  the  law  of  continuity  means  more.  It 
includes  the  affirmation,  the  negation,  the  reaffirmation; 
the  occupation,  the  loss,  the  reoccupation.  The  life  of  the 
individual  is  a  type  of  the  process.  I  like  to  think  of  the 
Book  of  Job  as  the  standing  illustration.  It  is  not  a 
theodicy,  a  treatise  on  the  nature  of  affliction.  The  doc- 
trine of  it  is  that  a  man  is  richer  and  in  fuller  possession 
who,  once  having  all  things,  loses  them  all  and  then  re- 
gains them.  He  did  not  know  their  value  until  he  had 
lost  them.  When  they  come  back  to  him  again,  he  holds 
them  at  their  real  value.  The  ancient  Church  started 
with  the  occupation,  the  mediaeval  lost  it,  the  struggle  of 
the  Reformation  and  since  has  been  to  regain  the  ancient 
heritage.     That  is  continuity." 

"Thank  you,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Scudder  in  August,  "for 
sending  me  the  'Address  at  the  Dedication  of  the  Mark 
Hopkins  Memorial.'  I  have  read  it  with  deep  inward 
assent.  It  is  time  to  protest  in  behalf  of  the  'Humanities.' 
We  have  gone  a  long  way  in  their  abandonment.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  'Nature  being  too  much  with  us.'  The 
maligned  18th  century  had  some  ideas.  Pope  may  have 
been  a  parrot,  but  he  uttered  one  thing  which  will  bear 
repeating  with  emphasis  —  'The  proper  study  of  mankind 
is  man.'  One  can  even  understand  Dr.  Johnson's  love  of 
the  city,  where  he  could  study  humanity,  which  has  so 
vastly  higher  an  object  of  interest  than  any  natural  sce- 
nery in  Scotland.  The  reaction  against  this  bondage  to 
Nature  is  sure  to  come,  and  you  herald  it  clearly  and 
courageously,  for  it  takes  some  courage,  with  Harvard  and 
Johns  Hopkins  and  Cornell  giving  so  much  prominence  to 
scientific  work.  Even  Clark  University  is  tamely  follow- 
ing suit,  and  physiological  psychology  is  thought  to  be  the 


i28  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

surest  way  of  studying  man  —  as  though  literature  and 
art  and,  let  us  add,  theology  were  not  a  truer  and  fuller 
revelation  of  man.  I  heard  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins  preach 
once,  and  remember  being  more  impressed  with  the  man 
than  with  the  sermon.  Indeed  the  latter  put  me  to  sleep, 
but  I  came  away  with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  in  having 
seen  and  heard  him." 

Mr.  H.  M.  Alden  revealed  himself  in  the  spring  of  1891 
to  Dr.  Allen  as  the  author  of  God  in  His  World,  and  ac- 
knowledged his  indebtedness  to  him  for  his  reaction  against 
the  characteristic  tendencies  of  Latin  Theology.  As  John 
Fiske's  Idea  of  God  has  spread  Dr.  Allen's  message  far  on 
one  side,  so  Mr.  Alden's  extremely  popular  book  brought 
the  idea  to  another  large  body  of  readers.  This  same 
spring  Rev.  J.  B.  Heard,  an  English  admirer  of  The  Con- 
tinuity, wrote  that  he  had  been  chosen  to  give  the  Hulsean 
Lectures  at  the  English  Cambridge,  and  he  was  frankly  and 
avowedly  basing  his  lectures  on  the  root  idea  of  The  Con- 
tinuity. All  this  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  indirect 
but  quick  method  by  which  a  vital  word  is  passed  forward 
in  history,  when  brothers  in  the  craft  of  writing  books 
catch  it  up. 

In  March,  1891,  the  Rev.  Minot  J.  Savage  preached  a 
sermon  in  Boston  on  the  MacQueary  trial,  saying  that  not 
one  in  ten  of  the  Episcopal  clergy  believed  in  its  entirety 
the  Apostles'  Creed.  Dr.  Allen  felt  this  to  be  an  insult 
to  the  Church  and  departed  from  his  rule,  and  under  the 
name  of  "Cambridge"  wrote  an  open  letter  to  The  Boston 
Post,  which  was  then  a  dignified  journal.  "I  am  sure  it  is 
not  true,"  said  Dr.  Allen  in  the  course  of  the  letter,  "but 
if  some  unenlightened  preacher  should  say  of  the  Unitarian 
clergy  that  not  one  in  ten  of  them  believed  in  God,  it 
would  be  just  as  true  as  to  say  that  not  one  in  ten  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy  believes  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  in  its 
entirety.  And,  indeed,  Mr.  Savage  no  doubt  has  twisted 
and  stretched  the  word  God  till  it  means  something  very 


CHURCH  HONESTY  129 

different  from  what  the  common  people  mean,  or  his  own 
ancestors  meant.  If  he  were  consistent,  or  honest  as  he 
prefers  to  call  it,  he  would  drop  the  word  to  which  on  his 
own  principles  he  is  not  entitled,  and  find  some  other." 
Dr.  Allen  proceeded  to  show  what  was  legitimate  in  growth 
of  interpretation,  what  not;  and  then  went  straight  to 
miracles:  "Mr.  Savage  assumes  that  miracle  is  impos- 
sible in  the  nature  of  things.  .  .  .  Mr.  Savage  lives 
in  an  atmosphere  of  his  own,  which  has  very  little  in 
common  with  the  spirit  which  prevails  in  an  organic  his- 
toric Church.  There  we  have  a  very  different  conception 
of  progress  from  that  which  he  entertains,  a  very  different 
view  also  of  what  is  necessary  for  the  cause  of  truth  and 
the  well-being  of  humanity.  In  that  Church  it  is  not  an 
axiom  that  the  miracle  is  impossible.  And  even  those 
who  feel  the  difficulties  of  modern  science  may  still  be  very 
far  from  rejecting  the  miracle  as  impossible:  they  would 
still  be  restrained  by  the  influence  of  an  historic  Church 
which  perpetuates  the  Christian  spirit  and  motive  in  ways 
of  which  the  individual  preacher,  measuring  truth  by  his 
own  individual  reason,  in  this  particular  age  of  the  world's 
history,  does  not  even  dream.  They  can  make  allowances 
for  him,  which  it  is  impossible  that  he  should  make  for 
them.  We  have  become  so  accustomed  to  this  attitude  of 
radical  reformers  who  have  cut  loose  from  the  large  truth 
of  the  Christian  revelation  in  the  Christian  Church,  that 
we  are  inclined  to  be  silent  when  they  insinuate  their 
accusations  of  dishonesty.  But  if  we  cannot  make  them 
understand  our  position,  we  are  driven  to  ask  if  they  realize 
what  they  are  saying." 

Mr.  Savage  replied  the  next  day  that  the  newspaper 
report  was  poor,  he  was  misrepresented  —  nevertheless 
Episcopal  clergymen  were  dishonest.  March  26,  "Cam- 
bridge" gave  his  final  blow  to  these  so-called  "liberal  Chris- 
tians." "I  had  hoped,"  said  Dr.  Allen,  "that  he  would 
have  qualified  his  language,  if  not  withdrawn  it  altogether. 


i3o  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

.  .  .  Mr.  Savage  must  know  that  the  accusation  he 
makes  is  a  stale  and  hackneyed  one.  From  the  time  of 
St.  Paul  down  to  our  own,  and  in  the  case  of  almost  every 
great  religious  leader  or  reformer,  we  hear  the  charge  of 
dishonesty.  .  .  .  Least  of  all,  as  it  seems  to  many,  can  the 
Unitarians  plead  exemption  from  the  common  lot.  Least 
of  all,  are  they  entitled  to  cast  the  first  stone.  To  those 
who  are  familiar  with  the  rise  of  Unitarianism  in  this 
country,  it  is  needless  to  recall  the  pestilential  air  of  coward- 
ice and  concealment  and  actual  falsehood  in  which,  ac- 
cording to  their  orthodox  opponents,  the  sect  of  Unitarians 
took  its  rise.  To  this  day  they  are  accused  by  their  so- 
called  orthodox  brethren  of  stealing  church  buildings  and 
other  property,  of  perverting  funds.  ...  To  be  sure, 
Unitarians  were  acquitted  by  the  courts,  but  it  was  by 
means  of  these  'legal  fictions,'  these  '  word-twistings '  for 
which  Mr.  Savage  has  no  intellectual  respect.  Now  and 
then  we  hear  a  voice  from  some  ancient  orthodox  Congre- 
gational pastor  who  is  familiar  with  the  past,  to  the  effect 
that  the  Unitarians  will  never  prosper  until  they  restore 
the  property  they  have  stolen.  I  do  not  bring  these 
charges  —  I  do  not  believe  them.  .  .  .  But  if  Mr.  Savage 
insists  upon  accusing  the  Episcopal  Church  of  dishonesty, 
then  upon  his  own  principle  he  belongs  to  a  body  against 
which  he  is  unable  to  repel  a  charge  of  much  worse 
kind."  Dr.  Allen  now  turned  to  appeal,  pointing  out  the 
evil  done  by  this  mutual  suspicion  and  recrimination: 
"What  is  the  influence  upon  young  men  when  they  hear 
their  spiritual  pastors  and  masters  denounced  as  dis- 
honest, and  yet  see  them  retaining  the  respect  of  the  com- 
munity? Does  all  this  denunciation  contribute  to  the 
well-being  of  the  social  order,  where  honesty  is  the  only 
bond  of  faith  or  security?  It  is  not  the  word-twisting 
which  does  the  mischief.  The  growth  of  language  by  the 
interior  changes  of  thought  is  not  word-twisting.  That 
is  mere   theological  accusation,  in  order  that  one  party 


BROOKS  A  BISHOP  131 

may  get  the  better  of  another.  What  does  the  mischief  is 
that  the  common  people  draw  one  of  two  inferences  — 
either  that  the  whole  business  of  theological  accusation  is 
the  mere  Pickwickian  use  of  language,  or  else  that  honesty 
is  not  so  important  after  all." 

The  correspondence  shows  how  Dr.  Allen  would  have 
written  had  he  been  a  controversialist.  His  books  were 
not  controversial;  they  were  never  meant  to  be.  In  April, 
1891,  he  consented  to  deliver  the  Lowell  Lectures  the  follow- 
ing winter,  choosing  for  a  subject  Christian  Institutions. 

In  May  Phillips  Brooks  was  chosen  Bishop  of  Massa- 
chusetts. This  was  an  event  of  importance  to  both  Dr. 
Allen  and  the  School.  In  the  opposition  stirred  up  against 
Dr.  Brooks's  confirmation  by  the  Standing  Committees 
and  Bishops,  Dr.  Dix  had  been  appealed  to  as  a  suitable 
leader,  but  with  great  dignity  refused  to  have  any  part 
in  it.  "Of  course  he  would  not  soil  his  hands,"  said  Dr. 
Allen,  "for  he's  a  gentleman,  but  the  way  he  bears  himself 
is  very  fine."  Dr.  Allen  always  spoke  of  Dr.  Dix  with 
affection  after  this:  he  had  always  respected  him. 

He  had  met  Bishop  Clark  and  the  Bishop-elect  at  the 
June  Clericus,  when  the  subject  discussed  was  Prayers  for 
the  Dead.  "It  gave  me  points  for  Christian  Institutions ," 
he  said.  "There  seemed  to  be  a  general  undercurrent  of 
approval  for  the  practice,  which  to  some  extent  I  criti- 
cized and  opposed.  But  the  modern  tendency  rests  on  a 
different  principle  from  the  mediaeval  practice;  that  is, 
the  sense  of  common  humanity,  through  all  the  ranges 
of  existence."  In  the  letter  in  which  he  told  of  this,  he 
reported  that  Mr.  Mabie  had  renewed  a  request  for  the 
three  articles  on  the  Bible.  "I  think  his  offer  to  pay  so 
generously  paralysed  any  will  I  might  have  had  to  accept. 
I  have  decided  not  to  mix  myself  up  in  a  controversy  that 
belongs  to  another  religious  body.  There  is  enough  to  do 
at  home.  Then  I  don't  feel  that  I  quite  agree  with  Dr. 
Briggs.     My  face  is  in  another  direction.     Do  you  know 


i3  2  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

I  am  beginning  to  have  the  faintest  apprehension,  which 
I  have  yet  hardly  admitted  to  myself,  that  I  am  changed 
or  changing  from  the  mood  in  which  I  wrote  Continuity. 
I  wonder  that  the  critics  of  Jonathan  Edwards  didn't  notice 
something  of  a  difference,  for  I  think  there  was  one.  I 
spoke  of  Calvinism  more  kindly  and  moderately  than 
I  could  have  done  in  the  first  book.  I  haven't  retracted 
anything  to  myself:  it  was  all  true,  and  I'm  glad  I  did  it 
then,  for  I  couldn't  do  it  now.  But  the  growth  of  the 
tendency  to  interpret  everything  in  some  positive,  credit- 
able-to-humanity  way  is  what  I  notice  in  myself.  I  fear 
it  a  little,  for  it  can  be  easily  carried  too  far.  Humanity 
has  made  some  big  mistakes  and  failures,  and  it  has  its 
evil  sides.  But  I  feel  every  now  and  then  as  though  I  had 
gone  back  on  myself,  or  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Mabie,  intelli- 
gent and  appreciative,  wouldn't  take  it  for  granted,  as  he 
does  from  reading  my  books,  that  I  am  in  sympathy  with 
Dr.  Briggs  and  could  easily  write  just  the  articles  he  wants. 
But  I  wouldn't  have  you  think  I  retract  anything  of  my 
thought.  There  is  a  change  of  outlook  —  but  I  don't 
express  myself  clearly.  Perhaps  you  will  understand.  .  .  . 
I  am  going  to  dine  with  Brooks  next  Thursday  —  we  four, 
Brooks,  Browne,  Parks,  and  I.  Brooks  seems  chastened 
and  subdued,  but  shows  no  consciousness  of  what  is 
going  on." 

Miss  Gardiner  asked  him  to  explain  the  word  "  idealizing." 
"The  word  'idealizing,'"  he  said,  "is  objectionable  be- 
cause it  seems  to  imply  mere  creative  activity  on  one  side, 
as  if  there  were  no  knowledge  in  the  nature  of  things  behind 
it.  To  endow  a  being  with  all  possible  attributes  of  per- 
fection, and  then  to  wake  up  to  the  reality,  as  far  remote 
from  the  vision,  is  sure  to  lead  either  to  loss  of  faith  in 
goodness  or  to  the  discarding  of  reality.  ...  In  every 
soul  lies  this  divine  capacity  for  beatification.  It  is  the 
ground  of  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  — that  to  the  eye  of 
divine   love   every   child    is    pronounced   regenerate   and 


THE  UNIVERSAL  REASON  133 

endowed  with  an  affiliation  for  the  highest.  So  human 
love  seems  to  be  following  a  universal  law.  Was  not 
Dante's  case  the  most  supreme,  beautiful  illustration  of  it? 
.  .  .  Again,  have  we  not  here  the  force  and  significance 
of  that  doctrine  of  original  sin  which  Augustine  insisted 
upon  in  the  face  of  the  persistent  idealizing  of  the  Greeks? 
The  world  and  the  Church  took  it  from  him,  and  it  became 
the  law  of  estimating  humanity  in  the  Middle  Ages,  till 
Dante  burst  away  from  it  and  restored,  by  its  side,  a 
primitive  and  higher  level  which  had  been  overlooked  or 
denied.  I  really  think  I  must  put  this  idea  into  Christian 
Institutions.  What  we  need  in  theology  is  to  illustrate 
these  obscure  dogmas  by  the  facts  of  our  deepest,  most 
common  experiences." 

He  answered  more  questions  on  June  21.  "We  had 
our  Commencement  on  Wednesday,"  he  wrote,  "and  our 
Alumni  dinner  the  night  before.  Bishop  Clark  was  there 
and  Bishop-elect  Brooks,  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  sit- 
ting next  to  at  dinner.  We  all  made  our  speeches,  and  I 
made  mine,  in  which  I  took  occasion  to  put  very  briefly 
my  position  regarding  the  relation  of  Church  and  Bible  to 
reason.  You  asked  me  for  my  opinion,  and  in  turning  it 
over  for  you,  I  found  that  I  had  made  a  speech  for  Com- 
mencement. Dr.  Briggs  says  that  the  Bible,  the  Church, 
and  the  reason  are  co-ordinate  sources  of  authority  for 
divine  truth.  .  .  .  The  point  I  make  is  that  there  is 
only  one  means  of  revelation:  the  medium  through  which 
God  speaks  to  man  is  the  divine  reason.  The  Church  and 
the  Bible  are  alike  the  expression  of  the  reason,  not  merely 
of  the  individual  man  in  any  one  age,  but  of  the  devout 
reason  of  humanity,  and  so  true  for  all  ages.  .  .  .  All 
this  has  been  obnoxious  to  many  because  they  cannot 
think  of  any  but  the  individual  reason,  with  its  limitations, 
rejecting  or  accepting  in  its  arbitrary  way.  So  it  was  with 
the  1 8th  century  —  the  reason  of  one  age  unenlightened 
by  a  full  knowledge  of  history  or  of  man.    That  we  call 


i34  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

rationalism,  which  has  become  a  stigma  of  reproach.     We 

must  learn  to  live  in  the  universal  reason,  and  so  enlarge 

our  narrow  experience.   .   .   .     The  instinct  of  man,  which 

is  God  speaking  in  the  soul,  expresses  itself  in  the  Church, 

in  the  Book,  etc.    That  makes  them  authoritative  in  the 

final  enduring  way.     And  Christ  Himself  is  the  reason  of 

God,  the  Logos,  the  manifested   Reason.  .  .  .     This  is 

quite  a  theological  letter,  but  you  asked  me  for  my  view, 

and  then  you  are  a  theological  girl  and  you  can  stand  it. 

Bishop  Clark  brought  in  Continuity  by  name  in  his  sermon 

and  reproduced  the  doctrine  of  Immanence.  Ah,  well!  those 

things  were  true,  but  there  is  still  other  important  truth 

to  be  spoken.    What  I  am  going  to  insist  upon  in  Christian 

Institutions  is  the  modifications  which  have  been  effected 

by  the  rise,  decline,  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.    That 

is  fast  becoming  the  controlling  thought  in  my  mind,  as  I 

revolve  the  various  points  of  organization,  discipline,  etc. 

—  and  then  humanism  as  the  issue  of  the  Reformation." 

"We  are  a  broken  family,"  he  wrote  in  August.  "Jack, 

alone  of   the    family,  has  gone  to  church  to-night.     He 

has  taken  a  great  notion  to   doing   the    religious  as  an 

avenue  to  the  social  —  at  least  so  Harry  thinks.     He  goes 

to  Wednesday  evening  prayer-meetings,  and  three  times 

on  Sundays.     He  is  quite  serious  about  it  all,  tolerates  no 

joking  or  winking;  but  there  is  a  girl  in  the  case,  I  know. 

Ay  de  mi,  as  Carlyle  put  it,  it  is  only  my  own  story  right 

over  again,  and  Jack  does  not  know  it.    He  pities  me 

sometimes  as  having  had  no  opportunities.    Life  seems  to 

mean  so  much  to  him,  it  is  so  rich  and  enthralling  —  while 

I  sit  in  my  study  and  write  or  pore  over  dreary  books. 

And  when  I  was  at  his  age  I  never  dreamed  that  I  should 

come  to  it.   .  .  .     This  is  to  be  a  great  week  in  Boxford. 

The  Town  Hall  is  to  be  dedicated,  by  a  speech  in  the 

afternoon  for  the  oldsters,  and  a  ball  in  the  evening  for 

the  youngsters.     Oh,  you  can't  imagine  what  an  occasion 

it  is  for  Jack!    He  is  going  to  dance,  and  is  determined  to 


SYMPATHY  WITH  YOUTH  135 

keep  it  up  to  the  last  moment,  which  it  is  thought  will 
be  2  or  3  a.m.  The  great  question  is  about  his  girl.  As 
far  as  I  can  find  out,  he  has  not  got  her  yet,  and  for  the 
matter  of  that  does  not  know  her.  He  has  the  promise 
of  an  introduction,  when  she  gets  there,  for  her  father  is 
expected  to  bring  her  from  the  remote  end  of  the  town. 
But  she  is  to  be  the  prettiest  girl  of  the  whole  assembly. 
These  things  I  gather  in  snatches  of  conversation  with 
Harry,  which  I  chance  to  overhear.  Jack  does  not  take 
me  into  his  confidence.  Perhaps  he  would  if  I  solicited 
it,  but  I  don't  know  that  I  want  it.  And  there  are  draw- 
backs too  which  make  him  a  little  uncomfortable  and 
uncertain.  His  clothes  are  not  quite  to  his  mind,  and  it 
is  too  late  now  to  make  them  what  they  should  be.  Poor 
dear  Jackie!  And  all  this  is  confidential.  It  moves  me 
deeply.  What  creatures  we  are.  This  occasion  exists  only 
for  him:  he  is  the  centre;  it  is  as  if  the  Town  Hall  had 
been  built  and  the  people  came  solely  for  his  triumph. 
We  carry  the  world  with  us,  and  it  is  only  what  we  make 
it.  What  a  divine  gift  to  remake  the  world  for  our  indi- 
vidual selves,  from  our  infancy  on,  till  I  suspect  in  old  age, 
when  we  have  got  through  with  it,  it  seems  to  us  only 
rational  that  with  us  it  should  cease  to  be. 

"I  have  had  to  give  up  my  first  plan  for  Xn.  Ins.  I 
could  not  emancipate  myself  from  history  so  that  each 
chapter  would  begin  with  the  first  and  end  with  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  whole  thing  is,  after  all,  movement. 
The  dogmatic  and  pragmatic  ways  are  alien.  One  century 
is  as  real  to  me  as  any  other.  Sometimes  I  think  those 
that  are  gone  are  more  real  than  the  present.  So  Xn. 
Ins.  will  be  Continuity  in  a  new  form." 

Miss  Gardiner  asked  him  what  to  think  about  the  place 
of  music  in  life.  "I  am  confused  about  music,"  he  wrote. 
"It  seems  to  me  the  revelation  of  a  deep  and  beautiful 
mystery  round  about  us,  but  what  I  am  after  is  the 
meaning  of  the  secret,  so  that  music  does  not  help  me 


136  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

always,  and  sometimes  pains  me.  Do  they  create  music, 
or  does  it  already  exist  and  do  they  extract  it  from 
the  depth  of  nature?  I  have  lately  been  impressed  with 
Carlyle's  talk  about  the  silences.  Does  the  earth  make 
any  noise  as  it  spins?  Is  it  silent,  or  is  it  furnishing 
part  of  the  music  of  the  spheres  which  they  talk  about? 
Do  the  sounds  that  we  hear  include  the  whole  of  nature? 
I  have  a  notion  that  public  worship  in  the  Church  is 
encircling  the  earth  gradually  with  a  music  interpreted  by 
words:  often  in  the  daily  services  in  the  Chapel  the  thought 
occurs  to  me  that  we  are  putting  the  true  interpretation 
upon  God's  universe  which  may  be  audible  to  saints  and 
angels  and  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect,  so  filling  up 
the  silences  of  nature,  as  if  it  were  a  void  which  man  was 
made  to  fill.  There  is  so  much  to  see  on  every  hand,  so 
very  little  that  is  beautiful  to  hear.  This  may  include 
poetry,  and  sometimes  preaching.  But  music  is  to  me  in 
itself  rather  the  revelation  of  a  deeper  mystery,  than  the 
lifting  of  the  veil  from  the  mystery.  I  have  read  lately 
Hegel's  chapter  on  Music,  but  it  gave  me  no  great  light. 
.  .  .  Gray  expressed  it — to  leave  the  warm  precincts 
of  the  cheerful  day,  and  cast  no  lingering,  longing  look 
behind.  That  must  be  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection. 
.  .   .    This  is  an  intensely  quiet  Sunday  afternoon." 

Early  in  September  he  finished  an  article  on  Hopkins, 
which  appeared  in  the  December  Atlantic  under  the  title, 
The  Transition  in  New  England  Theology.  In  it  was  a 
favourite  phrase,  "He  found  his  freedom."  When  a  friend 
came  home  from  making  a  speech  or  preaching  a  sermon, 
he  would  ask,  "Well,  did  you  get  your  freedom?"  "Mrs. 
Allen  and  the  boys,"  he  wrote,  "expressed  great  joy  when 
Samuel  Hopkins  was  out  of  the  house.  This  surprised 
me  for  I  was  not  aware  of  having  groaned  over  it  aloud. 
But  they  seemed  to  feel  that  the  absorption  made  me 
uncongenial.  ...  I  inwardly  determine  never  to  do 
another  piece  of  work,  not  even  a  newspaper  article.    And 


NEW  ENGLAND  THEOLOGIANS  137 

yet  I  know  I  am  in  for  it  for  life,  and  when  I  stop, 
things  will  stop  altogether.  It  reminds  me  of  the  sailors 
at  Nantucket,  who  took  their  voyages  around  Cape  Horn, 
for  four  years  at  a  time,  and  who  always  resolved  if  they 
got  safely  through  they  would  never  take  another.  But 
when  they  got  home  they  found  that  they  were  unsuited 
to  life  on  the  land,  and  before  they  knew  it  they  were 
off  again.  This  in  view  of  your  advice  not  to  trifle  any 
further  with  the  New  England  Theology.  But  the  writing 
of  Hopkins  has  just  given  me  a  clear  view  of  Emmons  and 
Murray  and  the  rest,  and  I  have  a  feeling  that  I  must  do 
them,  and  carry  out  that  old  plan  of  mine.  Some  one  will 
do  it  in  an  inferior  or  wrong  way,  and  I  may  be  conceited 
but  I  feel  sure  I  can  do  it  better.  Why  couldn't  I  do  them 
one  by  one  as  a  change  from  other  work,  making  short 
articles  for  The  Atlantic  or  The  Andover  now  and  then? 
Perhaps  Samuel  H.  will  shut  off  a  rival,  and  I  shall  have 
the  field  to  myself  at  my  leisure.  Scudder  says  he  will 
take  them  for  The  Atlantic.  I  shall  wait  and  see  if 
Samuel  H.  gives  any  reasonably  'good  satisfaction.'  Then 
there  are  Murray,  Ballou,  Emmons,  Bushnell,  Channing, 
Parker,  and  Mulford.     We  shall  see  what  we  shall  see. 

"Kent  Stone  is  with  us  at  last,  and  is  unusually  well  and 
interesting.  I  asked  him  to  prayers  this  morning,  and  he 
said  he  too  would  go  to  prayers  —  his  own  —  so  he  went 
for  his  Breviary.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Breviary  is  a 
good  thing  for  the  Roman  clergy,  and  perhaps  it  is  good 
for  them  that  they  have  to  read  it  every  day.  I  have  no 
doubt  either  that  it  might  do  me  good;  but  to  have  to  use 
it  under  heavy  penalties  on  one's  conscience  and  eccle- 
siastical law  —  that  I  couldn't  stand.  The  Church  of 
England  has  been  wise  in  requiring  no  such  use." 

At  the  October  meeting  of  the  Clericus,  the  Bishop-elect 
resigned  his  presidency.  At  the  Consecration  service  a 
few  days  later,  Dr.  Allen  was  moved  by  the  serene  ear- 
nestness of  his  great  friend,  who,  sweetened  rather  than 


138  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

embittered  by  his  foes,  stood  up  bravely  for  the  task  that 
was  shortly  to  kill  him.  To  Father  Hall,  who  had  played 
a  noble  part  in  the  days  of  strife,  Dr.  Allen  sent  an 
affectionate  letter,  and  received  a  grateful  reply. 

The  Lowell  Lectures,  fully  written  out,  were  delivered 
in  February,  1892.  The  subjects  of  the  lectures  were: 
I.  The  Catholic  Ideal;  II.  The  Ascetic  Ideal;  III.  The 
Imperial  Ideal;  IV.  The  National  Ideal;  V.  The  Ethical 
Ideal;  VI.  The  Social  Ideal;  VII.  The  Secular  Ideal; 
VIII.  The  Intellectual  Ideal.  Under  these  heads  he  re- 
viewed the  various  institutions  in  the  light  of  Christian 
history.  Intended  to  form  the  basis  for  the  book  on 
Christian  Institutions,  the  lectures  are  quite  different 
from  the  outcome  in  both  matter  and  form,  though  con- 
tributing to  the  outcome  at  every  step.  As  read  in  their 
distinct  manuscript  pages  they  are  direct  and  illuminating, 
and  one  imagines  how  they  would  have  delighted  the 
classes  in  Dr.  Allen's  small  lecture  room;  but  his  voice 
was  quite  lost  in  Huntington  Hall,  and  as  public  lectures 
they  were  a  failure.  It  would  be  singularly  sad  to  place 
the  labour  beside  the  public  failure  had  it  not  led  to  a 
larger  success  at  last. 

The  winter  was  trying.  Mrs.  Allen  had  been  ill  fre- 
quently, and  the  anxiety  so  wore  upon  Dr.  Allen  that  even 
his  handwriting  declared  his  discouragement,  which  he 
tried  to  conceal.     A  brief  visit  to  Mr.  Taylor  was  a  help. 

Bishop  Brooks  delivered  his  only  Diocesan  Convention 
Address,  May  18.  It  had  unusual  meaning  to  Dr.  Allen, 
because  it  gave  public  expression  to  his  estimate  of  the 
School.  "We  may  well  be  specially  and  profoundly 
thankful,"  he  said,  "that  we  have  in  our  great  Seminary 
at  Cambridge  a  home  and  nursery  of  faith  and  learning 
.  .  .  which  no  school  of  our  Church  has  ever  surpassed. 
Full  of  deep  sympathy  with  present  thought;  quick  with 
the  spirit  of  inquiry;  eager  to  train  its  men  to  think  and 
reason;  equipped  with  teaching  power  of  the  highest  order; 


THE  SCHOOL  139 

believing  in  the  ever  increasing  manifestation  of  the  Truth 
of  God;  anxious  to  blend  the  most  earnest  piety  with  the 
most  active  intelligence,  and  so  to  cultivate  a  deep,  enthu- 
siastic, reasonable  Faith,  the  Cambridge  School  stands  very- 
high  among  the  powers  which  bid  us  hope  great  things  for 
the  work  which  the  servants  of  Christ  will  do  for  His  glory 
and  the  salvation  of  the  world  in  the  years  to  come."  To 
have  had  a  share  in  making  a  school  of  which  that  could 
be  said  by  such  a  man  as  Brooks  was  comfort  amidst  the 
forebodings. 

At  the  School  Commencement  this  year  Dr.  Steenstra 
and  Dr.  Allen  were  each  presented  with  $500.00  from  the 
Alumni  to  mark  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  their 
teaching.  The  words  that  were  spoken  at  the  Alumni 
dinner  were  more  gratifying  than  the  money.  The  year 
was  marked  in  the  School  by  the  lectures  of  Dr.  Alexander, 
Bishop  of  Derry  and  Raphoe;  by  the  building  of  Winthrop 
Hall  —  the  gift  of  many  friends;  and  by  the  gift  from 
William  R.  Huntington  of  his  liturgical  library. 

The  summer  at  Boxford  was  as  hard  as  the  winter  had 
been.  He  wrote:  "The  boys  and  I  have  been  in  much  dis- 
cussion over  the  Homestead  affair  and  the  Borden  case. 
I  like  to  hear  the  boys  talk,  with  their  dawning  reason,  on 
these  things.  ...  I  don't  think  it  is  of  much  use  to 
inquire  in  any  special  case  like  Homestead  who  is  at  fault. 
It  is  much  like  the  prolonged  chronic  state  of  war  between 
England  and  France  in  the  14th  century.  There  was 
always  enough  provocation  on  either  side  to  justify  it.  It 
was  a  sensitive  condition,  and  when  either  side  felt  strong 
it  made  war.  Isn't  it  about  so  now  in  the  relations  be- 
tween capital  and  labour?  There  are  plenty  of  old  grudges 
even  if  no  new  causes  —  a  chronic  state  of  disaffection, 
and  if  either  side  sees  an  opportunity  it  takes  it.  So  it 
seems  to  me  we  are  about  entering  a  new  stage  in  history, 
when  social  issues  will  be  uppermost.  .  .  .  There  is  a 
chance  for  the  Christian  Church  to  act,  for  the  problem 


i4o  THE  APPROACH  OF  A  GREAT  SORROW 

is  too  complicated  for  legal  settlement:  it  touches  the 
ethical  and  spiritual.  .  .  .  Have  you  read  the  criticism 
upon  Dr.  Royce's  book  in  The  Nation  ?  It  is  supercilious, 
disgustingly  so,  I  think,  and  rude,  which  is  so  utterly 
unnecessary.  Why  cannot  that  contemptible  sheet  take  a 
kinder  tone?  One  can  be  quite  as  severe,  quite  as  clear 
in  expressing  disapproval.  .  .  .  The  Nation  is  a  paper 
of  grievances,  which  pass  for  criticism.  It  has  done  great 
injury  in  America.  As  to  the  criticism  on  Royce,  I  am 
rather  glad  to  see  some  one  who  is  not  in  awe  of  him,  but 
I  think  Royce  is  in  some  respects  right,  and  I  like  his 
'timeless  choice'  idea." 

One  day  in  October,  Mrs.  Allen,  seemingly  better,  went 
to  Poland  Springs  with  a  friend  for  a  few  days.  She  waved 
her  good-bye  from  the  carriage  door  to  an  invalid  across 
the  street,  whom  she  had  been  visiting  daily  since  her 
return  to  Cambridge.  She  wrote  a  letter  that  evening 
from  her  destination,  telling  of  a  long  walk  through  the 
woods.  But  before  the  letter  reached  Cambridge,  there 
was  a  telegram  saying  that  in  the  night  she  had  died, 
passing  from  the  rest  of  sleep  to  the  peace  of  death.  The 
dreaded  day  had  come. 

"Baltimore,  October  15,  1892. 
"My  dear  Allen: 

"What  can  I  say  to  you  that  will  let  you  know  at  all  how  my 
whole  heart  of  love  is  with  you  in  the  strange  sorrow  which  has 
come  to  you.  You  know  it  without  my  telling  you,  do  you  not, 
my  dear  friend? 

"It  seems  like  such  a  few  years  ago  that  I  knew  your  wife  in 
her  bright  girlhood  in  her  father's  house  in  the  old  Philadelphia 
days.  And  during  all  these  years  which  have  come  since,  your 
happiness  and  hers  made  one  of  the  pictures  on  which  I  have 
delighted  to  dwell  and  which  have  made  the  world  seem,  at 
least  at  one  spot,  what  one  would  want  to  have  it  be.  My  first 
thought  is  thankfulness  to  God  for  all  that  He  has  given  you  in 
her  through  all  these  years. 

"That  He  does  not  take  away  what  He  thus  gives  into  the 


MRS.  ALLEN'S  DEATH  141 

heart  of  hearts  of  His  children  you  know  full  well.  You  have 
taught  us  all  to  know  it  very  deeply.  I  cannot  but  believe  that 
the  knowledge  of  it  is  clearer  and  sweeter  to  you  today  than  it 
has  ever  been. 

"You  will  forgive  me,  I  am  sure,  for  claiming  the  privilege 
of  speaking  to  you.  Our  friendship  is  so  old  and  has  been  so 
much  to  me  for  so  large  a  portion  of  my  life  that  I  cannot  see 
my  dear  friend  in  his  great  sorrow  and  not  say  to  him  '  God  help 
you! ' 

"  So  I  do  say  to  you  and  to  your  boys,  May  the  great  Light 
and  Love  and  Peace  be  with  you. 

"Affectionately  yours, 

"Phillips  Brooks." 

In  the  small  book  in  which  Dr.  Allen  entered  the  more 
important  events  of  his  life  he  wrote  on  one  page,  "October 
14th,  1892."     Otherwise  the  page  is  blank. 


CHAPTER  XII 

TRIALS  AND   VICTORIES 

1893-1895 

DR.  ALLEN  bore  his  grief  with  a  dignity  and  force  that 
awed  his  friends.  To  the  outsider  he  seemed  to 
pursue  his  studies  with  the  same  energy.  But  the  loss  was 
more  than  personal.  The  world  was  a  great  way  off,  and 
he  could  not  get  at  things.  The  Boxford  house,  unspeak- 
ably dear  to  him,  he  never  lived  in  again;  it  was  twelve 
years  before  he  could  even  see  it.  His  hair  grew  white; 
but  there  was  the  same  smile,  only  more  full  of  tenderness 
and  sympathy.  A  Senior  in  the  School  wrote  to  a  graduate, 
"Dr.  Allen  is  better,  gentler,  sweeter  than  ever."  The 
depth  of  his  nature  received  the  hard  lesson,  and  he  was  to 
teach  to  young  men  as  never  before  God's  Infinite  Love. 

Old  pupils  wrote  with  diffidence  their  sympathy.  Know- 
ing his  reserve  and  feeling  his  strength  to  endure,  they  said 
little,  but  they  reminded  him  what  his  teaching  was  to 
them,  how  it  bore  them  up  with  its  confidence  and  inspira- 
tion. One  wrote  from  England  that  visiting  the  Palace  at 
Ripon  he  heard  Bishop  Boyd-Carpenter  say  that  he  had 
prescribed  The  Continuity  as  a  text-book  for  the  candidates 
for  the  ministry  in  his  diocese:  "Dr.  Allen,"  he  said,  "is 
doing  a  great  work  for  the  general  Church."  But  such 
words  made  almost  a  wound:  there  was  only  the  thought 
what  pleasure  they  would  have  brought  to  the  home  a  few 
months  before. 

The  middle  of  January,  Dr.  Postlethwaite,  who  had  just 
lost  a  son,  came  to  comfort  and  be  comforted.     "I  want  to 

142 


DEATH  OF  BROOKS  143 

thank  you,"  Dr.  Postlethwaite  wrote,  January  22,  "for  the 
real  comfort  you  gave  me  in  our  long  talks  together.  I 
told  Sally  it  was  all  sad  but  sacred  and  a  holy  communion 
one  with  another  indeed.  It  did  me  good  to  hear  you  talk 
so  naturally  and  so  sweetly  of  Bessie.  It  increased  my 
faith  in  heaven,  in  eternity,  in  the  real  and  unseen.  ...  I 
was  glad  you  took  me  to  see  Brooks.  It  was  a  strange 
impression  he  made  upon  me  —  the  rushing  out  in  the 
hall  to  see  us,  the  rush  of  talk  he  kept  up  all  the  time, 
the  getting  up  and  down  out  of  his  chair,  the  talking  all 
the  way  to  the  door,  his  gentleness  with  you  (not  saying  a 
word  of  sympathy  and  yet  breathing  out  sympathy  for 
you  all  through  his  bearing  and  manner  towards  you)." 

That  was  Wednesday.  The  next  Monday,  January  23, 
1893,  word  flashed  over  Cambridge  that  Phillips  Brooks 
was  dead.  Scarcely  any  one  knew  of  his  brief  illness.  Men 
stared  at  one  another,  and  said  that  it  could  not  be.  To 
young  men  who  had  felt  that  for  once  they  had  seen  a  man 
of  the  stamp  of  Plato  or  Dante  —  one  of  the  few  greatest 
souls  of  all  time  —  it  seemed  as  if  the  props  of  the  world 
had  fallen  away.  Dr.  Allen,  as  the  intimate  of  young  men, 
had  this  ardent,  extravagant  loyalty  to  Brooks's  greatness. 
Added  to  it  was  the  Bishop's  warm  personal  friendship, 
given  in  these  months,  when  most  needed,  as  never  before. 
Once  more,  within  a  few  short  weeks,  sudden  death  came 
very  close. 

"Do  not  think  me  only  an  editor,"  wrote  Mr.  Scudder, 
the  day  of  the  death,  "when  I  write  at  once  to  lay  before 
you  the  serious  task  of  writing  for  The  Atlantic  a  paper  on 
the  Bishop.  I  must  find  some  sort  of  expression  for  this 
great,  this  unspeakable  loss,  and  I  turn  at  once  to  you  as 
the  one  man  who  can  speak  for  me.  I  shall  come  to  see 
you.     Do  not  answer  this." 

"The  death  of  Phillips  Brooks,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  his 
brother  in  March,  "is  a  sad  and  awful  loss  to  us.  Things 
seem  to  be  broken  up  without  him.     I  have  written  an 


144  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

article  for  The  Atlantic  —  a  tribute  mainly,  which  I  will 
send  you  when  it  appears.  It  was  written  at  a  single 
sitting,  and  has  the  merits  and  defects  of  such  an  attempt. 
But  it  was  done  in  a  hurry  to  get  it  into  the  April  number. 
There  are  some  things  in  it  which  have  not  yet  been  said. 
.  .  .  Just  at  present  we  have  a  case  of  scarlet  fever  in 
the  house,  little  Kent  Stone.  His  mother  is  Philip  Stone's 
widow.  She  lives  with  us  at  present,  taking  care  of 
Mrs.  Stone  and  running  the  house.  Mrs.  Stone  is  fairly 
well,  but  she  declines  in  strength.  The  present  arrange- 
ment is  therefore  precarious.  What  will  follow  is  very 
uncertain.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  don't  look  for- 
ward to  the  coming  of  spring  or  summer.  I  think  I  shall 
bury  myself  somewhere  in  New  Hampshire  and  work  on 
Christian  Institutions.  But  the  motive  for  work  is  gone. 
...  I  am  a  little  anxious  about  the  impending  Epis- 
copal election.  Huntington  was  the  man,  and  he  could 
have  been  elected,  but  he  declines.  ...  I  keep  fairly 
well,  and  keep  on  with  my  work  at  the  School  as  usual. 
But  it  is  a  wonder  to  me  that  one  can  live  through  these 
things.  Life  is  changed  and  the  dark  corner  turned.  .  .  . 
The  bells  are  ringing  for  evening  service.  They  do  not 
speak  to  me  as  they  did  to  Janet.  They  depress  me.  But 
then  almost  everything  does  in  these  days.  They  told  me 
it  would  come  easier  after  a  while,  but  I  do  not  find  it  so: 
it  grows  harder  as  the  months  go  by.  The  death  of  Phillips 
Brooks  would  have  been  enough  of  itself  to  change  the 
aspect  of  the  world  and  make  it  hard  to  live.  We  are  a 
bereaved  set  when  we  get  together  now,  who  used  to  find 
so  much  in  him.  He  was  so  much  above  all  other  men 
about  whom  one  has  learned  in  history,  or  met  in  one's 
own  world,  that  he  cannot  be  compared  with  them.  '  When 
they  heard  him,  they  were  astonished,  for  he  spoke  as  one 
having  authority.'" 

One  evening,  in  the   reading-room    of   Lawrence  Hall, 
Dr.  Allen  read  his  Atlantic  article   to  the  faculty  and 


ESSAY  ON  BROOKS  145 

students  of  the  School.  He  sat  in  his  chair  and  read  in  a 
subdued  voice;  and  the  air  was  full  of  devotion  —  to  the 
Bishop,  to  him,  to  the  Master  of  both.  There  was  much 
of  himself  in  the  article  though  he  was  unconscious  of  it. 
The  penetration  beneath  the  formula,  the  attitude  towards 
the  institution,  the  institution  of  the  Christian  Man  — 
all  revealed  his  own  spirit.  When  the  article  came  out 
Mrs.  Deland  said  to  him  what  the  students  felt  that  night; 
she  spoke  of  "its  beautiful  dignity  and  that  great  pressure 
of  reserve."  She  added  that  he  had  said  what  she  fancied 
all  had  felt  but  had  not  known  how  to  say,  "that  his  effect 
upon  this  generation  stands  for  a  spiritual  fact,  greater 
even  than  his  preaching  or  himself."  To  many  men  in 
that  room  that  night  Allen  stood  with  Brooks  as  master, 
one  in  the  realm  of  action,  the  other  in  the  realm  of  thought. 
Men  went  away  in  silence  as  if  they  had  been  at  some 
solemn  service. 

In  the  spring  of  1893  tne  Diocese  elected  Dean  Law- 
rence Bishop  of  Massachusetts.  He  had  barely  begun  his 
deanship,  but  he  had  proved  his  quality;  and  the  School, 
for  a  larger  good,  gave  him  to  the  diocese.  Dr.  George 
Hodges,  elected  October  4,  paid  the  School  the  high  tribute 
of  leaving  his  great  parish  in  Pittsburgh  and  became  dean 
the  following  January. 

Declining  an  invitation  to  hear  the  speech  of  one  he 
cared  for,  Dr.  Allen  said:  "It  is  our  Commencement  Day: 
even  to  that  I  am  not  equal.  My  place  at  present  is 
outside  of  things.  Church  History  goes  on,  but  that  is 
sheer  force  of  habit  mingled  with  necessity."  He  went 
alone,  as  he  expected,  into  New  Hampshire  for  his  summer, 
finding  the  pleasant  glen  at  Waterville.  There  also  he 
found  some  Harvard  students  who  instantly  adopted  him 
as  master,  and  there  too  he  found  the  congenial  family  of 
the  late  Charles  Loring  Brace,  who  understood  him  and 
gave  him  their  own  fine  friendship.  The  people  at  the  inn 
requested  him  to  have  prayers  each  morning,  and  they  all 


i46  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

gathered  after  breakfast  to  hear  him  read  a  chapter  and 
join  with  him  in  a  few  collects;  and  then  he  was  off  in  the 
woods,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes  with  one  of  these  new 
friends.  "It  made  me  forget  for  a  moment,"  he  wrote, 
"that  life  had  its  other  side."  Miss  Brace  was  writing 
the  life  of  her  father,  and  Dr.  Allen  gave  her  suggestion 
and  help.  He  wrote  to  her  from  Cambridge  about  this 
biography  and  then  went  on:  "Since  the  School  opened 
my  time  has  hardly  been  my  own.  In  the  absence  of  a 
dean,  much  extra  work  has  fallen  upon  me.  Dr.  Lawrence 
was  consecrated  yesterday  with  all  the  impressiveness  that 
the  function  can  command.  He  stands  for  the  Cambridge 
Theological  School  and  its  triumph.  But  the  ceremony 
was  haunted  throughout  by  the  memory  of  Phillips  Brooks, 
who  stood  in  the  same  place  for  the  same  function  just  two 
years  ago.  ...  I  have  just  finished  a  new  preface  for 
my  book  on  Continuity,  which  goes  to  a  new  edition  this 
fall,  with  some  changes.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that 
the  book  does  not  seem  to  belong  to  me  any  longer,  so  that 
I  can  hardly  recognize  that  I  wrote  it.  When  one  gives 
one's  thought  to  the  world  one's  own  proprietorship  in  it 
ceases.  ...  I  have  not  yet  recovered  from  Water- 
ville.  The  life  there  continues  to  hang  around  me  as  if 
more  real  than  the  life  here.  It  was  such  a  total  change 
from  my  summer  routine  of  the  last  few  years;  so  intense, 
too,  with  such  overpowering  influences  of  woods  and 
mountains  and  natural  beauty  that  I  find  myself  longing  to 
return  to  it,  if  only  for  a  moment.  I  am  recalling  now  that 
scene  from  the  bluff,  which  was  one  of  the  last  pictures 
stamped  upon  my  mind.  I  thank  you  very  deeply  for  your 
kind  words  of  sympathy." 

Dr.  Hodges,  on  coming  to  Cambridge,  had  demanded  that 
the  salaries  of  all  the  professors  be  raised;  he  rightly  judged 
them  lamentably  inadequate.  So  in  January,  1894,  Dr.  Allen 
received  formal  notice  that  his  salary  had  been  increased 
by  five  hundred  dollars  to  twenty-five  hundred  a  year. 


METHODS  OF  TEACHING  147 

Money  was  a  thing  of  which  he  had  small  understanding; 
and  he  was  almost  completely  indifferent  to  it.  But  at 
the  side  of  this  letter  he  wrote,  with  a  depth  of  pathos 
which  can  be  imagined:  "And  oh!  that  it  had  only  come 
earlier!" 

This  year  he  had  the  largest  Senior  class  in  the  history  of 
the  School,  and  he  gave  himself  to  them  with  the  more 
complete  devotion  because  of  his  loneliness.  Dr.  Everett 
having  induced  him  to  review  Dean  Stanley's  Life  for 
The  New  World,  had  secured  for  him  the  advance  sheets 
from  the  publishers.  The  students  felt  that  since  Stan- 
ley's Arnold,  there  would  not  have  been  such  a  delightful 
book  as  this  was  likely  to  be;  therefore,  since  the  book  was 
not  yet  published  and  accessible  to  them,  each  morning 
before  he  addressed  himself  to  his  lecture,  Dr.  Allen  would 
say  something  of  Stanley  and  his  friends,  as  the  book  was 
revealing  them  to  him.  The  biography  covered  a  period 
with  which  he  was  largely  familiar  in  his  own  experience. 
It  gave  him  new  clews  —  as  when  Stanley,  visiting  New- 
man, received  from  him  the  appeal,  "Criticize  the  Old 
Testament,  but  don't  touch  the  New":  Newman  had  the 
instinct  for  criticism  but  lacked  faith  to  follow  it  out.  With 
a  ripple  Dr.  Allen  told  of  the  message  the  Pope  gave  Stan- 
ley for  Pusey:  "You  know  Pusey?"  asked  the  Pope. 
"Well,  when  you  see  him  tell  him  from  me  that  I  compare 
him  to  a  bell  which  always  sounds  to  invite  the  faithful  to 
Church,  and  itself  always  remains  outside."  When  Dr. 
Allen  told  of  Stanley's  goodness  in  showing  the  Abbey  to 
working-men  he  added:  "I  too  had  that  privilege."  Once 
when  he  had  finished  the  few  minutes'  talk  on  this  absorb- 
ing subject,  he  opened  his  note-book  with  the  low  words, 
as  if  to  himself:  "Now  having  had  what  Joseph  Cook  calls 
a  prelude,  we'll  turn  to  Anselm." 

He  brought  into  the  lecture  room  always  a  number  of 
books;  sometimes  not  opening  any  of  them,  but  more  fre- 
quently having  them   all  open   before   him.     Ordinarily 


148  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

they  were  books  in  which  a  luminous  passage  bore  upon 
his  lecture.  Sometimes  they  were  symbols  to  remind  him 
of  an  attitude  which  he  wished  to  bring  out.  He  believed 
in  having  certain  books  in  a  library  as  symbols,  not  to  be 
read  but  to  remind  one  of  an  epoch  or  a  way  of  looking  at 
things  which  had  once  been  valuable  —  like  Scott's  com- 
mentaries, for  example,  which  he  said  used  to  be  given  to 
theological  students  and  were  excellent  for  the  lower  and 
less  accessible  shelves  of  young  clergymen's  libraries. 
Sometimes  the  books  contained  a  passage  from  a  current 
biography,  which,  as  in  Stanley's  case,  had  no  bearing  on 
the  immediate  lecture,  but  had  distinct  bearing  on  the 
equipment  of  men  preparing  for  the  ministry.  The  stu- 
dents looked  forward  to  his  lectures  as  the  great  pleasure 
and  inspiration  of  the  day.  They  were  interesting,  but 
the  one  ,  permanent  benefit  which  they  imparted  was, 
through  the  history,  to  make  men  feel  how  tight  a  hold 
God  has  upon  human  affairs.  They  gave  to  men  coming 
from  the  wide  speculations  of  Harvard,  for  instance,  the 
depth  and  steadfastness  of  impregnable  Faith.  They  did 
this  the  more  because  there  was  nothing  that  suggested 
argument  or  apologetic:  it  was  simply  the  straight,  broad 
communication  of  a  simple-hearted  trust. 

Not  all  the  men  were  of  Dr.  Allen's  Churchmanship. 
There  was  quite  apt  to  be  at  least  one  man  in  a  class  who 
sat  guard  over  his  assertions  as  a  cat  watches  a  mouse. 
Dr.  Allen  tried  to  be  accurate,  and  believed  it  very  im- 
portant; but  his  chief  business  was  to  show  men  what  the 
facts  meant.  He  expected  them  to  get  the  facts  before- 
hand from  their  reading.  Kurtz,  dull  and  dry,  was  gen- 
erally advised  as  a  handbook;  but,  as  he  turned  each 
corner  in  the  course,  he  gave  lists  of  important  books, 
from  which  he  expected  the  men  to  be  reading.  At  this 
time  there  were  no  recitations.  Since  most  of  the  men  had 
university  training,  and  needed  no  pushing,  they  came  to 
the  lecture  room  with  reasonable  acquisitions  from  reading. 


SEMINARS  149 

For  many  years  he  held  with  the  Middle  and  Senior  Classes, 
separately,  fortnightly  evening  seminars.     When  the  classes 
were  sufficiently  small,  they  were  in  Dr.  Allen's  study; 
at  this  time  they  were  in  the  large  Reading  Room  of  Law- 
rence Hall.    At  this  time,  too,  he  allowed  the  men  to  smoke 
their  pipes  during  the  evening,  but  no  pipe  was  lighted  till 
Dr.  Allen  had  come.     When  he  sat  down  before  the  large 
table,  and  had  touched  a  match  to  his  tobacco,  there  was 
general   scratching   of   matches.     No   one   had   suggested 
this  bit  of  ceremony  —  it  was  the  instinctive  respect  for 
him.     The  evening  was  apt  to  be  sufficiently  interesting 
to  make  the  smoking  very  light,  and  many  pipes  went  out, 
and  many  men  did  not  smoke  at  all.     But  it  all  made  for 
informality  and   comradeship,   though   there  was  always 
dignity  and  a  certain  solemnity.     Later  he  stopped  the 
smoking :  if  the  Romans  or  the  Puritans,  he  said,  who  were 
always  watching,  should  hear  of  it  they  would  say  that 
the  School  was  worldly.     There  was  no  harm  in  it,  but  it 
was  not  expedient.     Of  an  evening  generally  three  papers 
were  read,  each  paper  covering  a  good  deal  of  reading,  and 
exhibiting  a  student's  power  of  assimilation,  insight,  and 
expression.     The  night  when  Augustine's  correspondence 
with  Jerome  was  reviewed  was  apt  to  be  hilarious;  and  the 
Martin  Luther  evenings  were  sure  to  be  intense  —  for  Dr. 
Allen  always  contrived  that  the  members  of  the  class  who 
disliked  Luther  had  full  chance  to  give  their  reasons.     The 
attention  and  appreciation  of  Dr.  Allen  were  both  encour- 
aging and  humiliating,  making  a  man  strive  to  do  his  best; 
and  the  class  was  appreciative  too.     It  was  like  a  very 
fine  club,  with  a  master  to  applaud  and  upbraid.     The 
master's  own  comments  were  what  all  waited  for,  starting 
from  the  paper  just  read  and  thrusting  out  into  history 
and  experience,  into  books  old  and  new,  into  life  and  faith. 
He  could  sometimes  be  severe,  even  cutting.     One  night 
when  a  man  had  read  a  very  thin  paper,  Dr.  Allen  asked 
question  after  question  to   draw   him   out,   getting   flat 


150  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

ignorance  every  time.  Finally,  disheartened,  half-tenderly, 
he  asked,  "Tell  me  something  you  do  know  —  no  matter 
how  small."  He  saw  to  it  that  there  were  no  cant  phrases 
—  not  by  correction  of  them,  but  on  some  later  occasion 
by  coyly  poking  fun  at  them.  "Well,"  he  would  begin, 
"humanly  speaking,  as  they  say  in  Brooklyn.".  .  .  Or, 
when  a  man  had  been  ostentatiously  up  to  date,  he  would 
speak  incidentally  of  "this  so-called  nineteenth  century." 
He  was  as  a  father  to  his  men.  It  was  worth  to  them  very 
hard  work  to  hear  him  say  at  the  end  of  a  paper:  "Well, 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said."  He  treated  them  as  if 
they  were  his  equals:  he  never  talked  down  to  them.  If 
he  blamed  or  praised,  he  did  it  as  one  who  counted  them  at 
least  as  capable  as  himself.  It  was  his  faith  in  them.  A 
Boston  rector,  had  he  been  allowed  to  be  present,  would 
have  laughed  to  see  such  faith  in  raw  material;  but  his 
eyes  would  have  sparkled  with  a  new  light  had  he  seen  how 
the  men  dared  to  aspire  to  be  worthy  of  that  amazing 
faith.  In  nothing  was  his  power  as  a  teacher  more  mani- 
fest: it  was  the  Christ  in  him,  believing  in  blundering 
Simons  and  diffident  Johns. 

In  March  of  1894  he  delivered  at  Yale  two  lectures 
on  Religious  Progress.  Dr.  Fisher,  in  thanking  him  for 
them,  hoped  that  they  would  be  printed.  This  Dr.  Allen 
decided  to  do;  but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  allow 
them  to  go  to  press  as  they  were.  This  month,  too,  the 
article  in  The  New  World  appeared,  under  the  title  Dean 
Stanley  and  the  Tractarian  Movement.  In  one  passage  he 
described  himself  even  more  than  Stanley:  "In  all  his 
journeys  and  his  explorations  ...  he  carried  the  in- 
spiration of  a  great  theological  principle  —  the  convic- 
tion that  the  divine  is  revealed  in  and  through  the  human, 
that  God  is  revealing  himself  in  human  experience,  in  the 
crises  of  human  activity.  ...  It  was  this  conviction 
.  .  .  that  explains  his  joy,  his  intense  delight  in  life; 
it  impressed  him  also  with  the  dignity  and  the  spiritual 


EDINBURGH  151 

significance  of  the  pageants  of  history,  those  ceremonials 
of  Church  and  State  into  which  were  poured  a  people's 
emotion.  In  great  epochal  events  of  the  past  or  the  present, 
he  discerned  a  spiritual  halo,  as  if  he  were  moving  in 
some  supernatural  sphere,  hints  of  an  unearthly  meaning, 
pledges  of  a  celestial  fulfilment." 

He  sailed  for  England  early  in  July.  He  divided  the 
time  among  Edinburgh,  London,  and  the  Lake  Country. 
He  sat  on  a  bench  in  Grasmere  Churchyard,  reading  The 
Excursion.  "This  visit  to  the  Lakes,"  he  said,  "was  the 
most  beautiful  thing  I  ever  did."  As  he  sat  in  the  Abbey 
one  Sunday  afternoon,  he  felt  the  reality  of  English  history: 
the  preacher  in  his  surplice  was  hardly  distinguishable 
from  the  statues  about  him:  all  England  from  the  twelfth 
century  was  there.  In  Edinburgh  he  stayed  longest.  He 
bought  many  pictures  of  Scott  and  Burns  and  Queen  Mary. 
"She  is  still  alive,"  he  wrote,  "and  I  have  become  almost 
a  convert  to  the  Scotch  view  that  so  much  beauty  is  simply 
incompatible  with  sheer  wickedness,  as  otherwise  we  must 
believe."  He  often  said  that  people  who  thought  Prot- 
estantism a  failure  had  better  visit  Edinburgh  and  see 
its  order,  refinement,  and  spirituality.  Ecclesiastics  were 
almost  as  numerous  on  the  streets  as  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  prevalence  of  the  shovel  hat  on  Presbyterian  heads 
amazed  him :  it  spoke  much  for  the  clergy,  he  thought,  that 
they  could  survive  its  depressing  effect.  The  congrega- 
tion of  Dr.  Dods's  Church  interested  him:  there  was  no 
preaching  down  to  them,  for  they  sat  like  a  jury  in  a  box 
—  that  is,  looking  to  see  there  was  no  heresy  —  the  whole 
fifteen  hundred  of  them.  The  sermon  was  on  a  delicate 
Scotch  subject  —  the  Sabbath. 

The  deepening  of  his  friendship  with  Dr.  George  A.  Gordon 
was  also  part  of  Edinburgh.  Dr.  Allen  sent  him  a  book 
associated  with  Edinburgh  when  he  returned,  and  in  thank- 
ing him  Dr.  Gordon  said:  "I  am  going  to  put  your  note 
inside  as  an  evidence  and  memorial  of  beautiful  hours,  and 


152 


TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 


of  a  friendship,  which,  if  I  may  claim  it,  I  count  an  honour 
and  am  profoundly  thankful  for.  .  .  .  You  spoke  of  the 
absence  from  the  theological  world  to-day  of  a  repre- 
sentative, revealing  voice.  Let  me  say,  in  all  sincerity, 
that  you  seem  to  me  such  a  voice.  The  work  that  you  do, 
whenever  it  carries  your  stamp,  speaks  to  my  reason  in 
religion  as  almost  no  other  voice  does.  Pardon  me  for 
saying  this,  but  sometimes  it  is  better  to  be  bold."  So  the 
students  at  Cambridge  were  not  alone  in  their  estimate. 

The  year  at  the  School  was  marked  by  the  death  of  Mr. 
Winthrop,  who  was  succeeded,  as  president,  by  Judge 
Bennett,  and  as  trustee  by  Mr.  E.  L.  Davis.  The  chapel 
received  from  certain  alumni  the  bronze  bust  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  which  was  placed  near  the  pulpit. 

Religious  Progress  came  out  in  November,  1894,  and  from 
the  world's  view  was  a  failure.  The  reviews  were  short 
and  inconsequent.  Only  one  was  good  —  Mr.  Ludlow's 
two  columns  in  the  London  Spectator,  which  gave  full 
appreciation.  To  most  the  title  seemed  trite,  and  those 
who  opened  the  book  at  all  were  perplexed  because  the 
author  gave  neither  definition  nor  theory.  He  had  been 
mulling  the  subject  ever  since  in  boyhood,  at  Guilford,  he 
had  debated  on  whether  the  world  is  growing  better;  and 
now  he  put  down  some  of  the  elements  which  he  thought 
must  go  to  an  ultimate  solution  some  ages  hence.  It  was 
the  book  of  a  scholar,  not  of  a  preacher,  not  of  an  apologist. 
It  is  probably  overpolished  from  a  literary  standpoint:  its 
extreme  refinement  of  style  concealed  how  much  he  cared 
for  many  of  the  issues  —  perhaps  this  was  intentional: 
when  he  felt  very  deeply  he  was  wont  to  assume  a  rather 
careless  exterior,  as  if  his  emotions  might  carry  him  too 
far.  Old  pupils  liked  the  book  and  compared  it  with 
Brooks's  Tolerance,  which  they  thought  it  excelled,  and 
they  found  in  it  favourite  ideas,  such  as  these:  great 
words  cannot  be  defined;  the  supreme  problem  of  religion 
is  how  to  relate  the  past  to  the  present;  in  times  of  crisis 


RELIGIOUS  PROGRESS  153 

men  fall  back  on  the  mysterious  instincts  of  their  nature; 
the  ideas  of  one's  early  years  tend  to  reassert  themselves; 
consistency  may  reduce  personality;  theories  shrivel  in  the 
presence  of  the  world  of  common  life;  progress  is  thus 
a  going  back  to  penetrate  more  deeply  the  past  formulas 
of  men,  which  attest  the  immortal  convictions  of  the  soul. 
For  a  little  book  it  probably  went  too  far  afield.  It  is 
such  a  book  as  is  often  passed  over  to  become,  a  century 
hence,  a  classic.  It  serves  no  immediate  purpose  or  cause, 
but  it  tells  of  a  soul  apprehending  the  Truth.  He  knew  it 
failed  in  its  day,  and,  since  he  was  sensitive,  its  failure 
depressed  him. 

Dr.  Gordon  gave  him  criticism  as  well  as  appreciation. 
"Your  criticism,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote,  in  a  prompt  rejoinder, 
"goes  straight  to  the  heart  of  the  subject.  It  encourages 
me  that  you  see  that  the  subject  is  a  difficult  one.  I  quite 
agree  with  you  about  the  Hegelian  contradiction.  We  are 
all  tired  of  it,  and  Hegel  was  a  good  deal  in  the  air.  But 
the  word  has  its  place  in  the  popular  logic:  that  was  where 
I  encountered  it.  I  only  hope  that  I  am  not  discouraging, 
for  if  that  should  be  the  result,  I  should  know  that  I  was 
wrong." 

In  the  fall  of  1894  a  committee  of  six  bishops  issued  a 
Pastoral  Letter,  intended  to  be  reassuring,  but  tending  to 
confusion.  "I  quite  agree  with  you,"  wrote  Dr.  Allen  to 
his  brother  in  February,  1895,  "in  all  you  say  about  the 
Bishops'  Pastoral.  It  is  an  outrage.  The  worst  thing 
about  it  is  not  its  opinions  and  statements,  but  the  fact 
that  a  few  bishops  have  got  together  and  attempted  to 
define  the  doctrine  of  the  Church.  There  never  was  such 
an  open  violation  of  all  ecclesiastical  order  before  in  the 
history  of  the  Church.  When  Councils  have  met  to  define 
doctrine  there  has  been  discussion,  and  a  unanimous  vote 
has  been  required.  They  have  been  required  to  be  called 
with  all  solemn  formalities,  so  that  the  Church  knew  what 
was  happening.     But  all  these  things  are  wanting  here. 


154  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

The  bishops  got  together  and  appointed  a  committee  to 
write  a  Pastoral  and  then  off  they  go  without  seeing  or 
knowing  its  contents.  But,  further,  they  have  no  more 
right  to  define  doctrines  than  presbyters.  Really  the  only 
body  with  authority  is  the  General  Convention,  and  that 
has  no  right  to  touch  doctrine." 

The  New  World,  suspecting  his  attitude  on  this  Pastoral 
Letter,  asked  for  an  article  for  the  July  issue;  but  that  was 
another  matter.  He  would  not  publish  to  the  world  what 
he  felt  to  be  a  subject  to  be  settled  within  the  fold. 

Late  in  April  he  wrote  to  an  old  pupil  who  had  been 
reading  the  Life  of  Dean  Church:  "I  haven't  read  it,  but 
I  think  I  know  the  man,  He  had  greater  limitations  than 
Stanley.  He  was  so  enamoured  of  a  spurious  Catholicity 
that  he  didn't  see  the  true  character  and  greatness  of  the 
Church  of  England.  I  shall  read  it  of  course.  I  read  his 
account  of  the  Oxford  Movement,  though  it  threw  no  light 
on  that  strange,  perverse  movement  in  English  Christian- 
ity. What  dense  ignorance  and  prejudice  was  Pusey's, 
and  how  untrue  he  was  —  and  his  confreres  —  to  the  real 
Church  of  England.  Sometime  it  will  be  seen,  and  then 
it  will  be  meted  out  to  him  as  he  deserved.  Church  was 
as  bad  as  the  rest  of  them,  even  worse  it  may  be,  for  he 
sinned  against  greater  light.  Pusey  might  plead  ignorance 
in  the  day  of  judgment,  but  Church  should  have  known 
better.  They  have,  between  them,  confounded  Cathol- 
icity and  Romanism  —  so  ministering  to  intellectual  dis- 
honesty. The  time  is  near,  I  hope,  when  a  good,  honest, 
bracing  Protestantism  may  get  a  public  hearing.  .  .  . 
You  needn't  worry  about  anything  the  future  contains. 
You  have  only  to  be  yourself.     May  God  bless  you." 

At  the  Commencement  in  June,  1895,  Dr.  Allen  in  his 
speech  took  occasion  to  speak  of  the  Bishops'  Pastoral 
and  the  general  unrest  in  the  Church.  These  informal 
speeches  year  by  year  were  eagerly  heard  by  the  alumni: 
he  brought  them  back  to  his  class  room,  as  it  were,  and 


COMMENCEMENT  SPEECH  155 

reviewed  great  issues  in  the  light  of  passing  events.  He 
always  struck  deep,  with  careful  preparation,  and  pleaded 
for  the  highest  things.  "Now  the  lesson,"  he  said,  "is 
charity  and  meekness,  and  our  duty  towards  those  within, 
but  holy  boldness  also  in  maintaining  the  Protestant 
character  of  the  Church  of  our  Fathers."  He  told  how  the 
School  had  tried  to  deal  with  young  men  who  had  difficul- 
ties: it  was  with  great  sympathy  and  patience.  He 
recalled  the  story  of  the  bishop  and  the  master  of  theology 
in  the  days  of  St.  Louis  of  France:  "If,  Master,"  said  the 
Bishop,  "the  King  were  to  give  you  the  Castle  of  Rochelle 
nearest  the  frontier,  and  to  me  a  safe  castle  on  the  interior, 
which  would  be  esteemed  greater?"  "I,"  answered  the 
Master  of  Theology.  "Yes,"  said  the  Bishop;  "and, 
Master  —  my  heart  is  like  the  safe  port  on  the  interior, 
for  I  have  no  temptation  to  doubt.  God  will  give  you 
four  times  what  he  gives  me,  if  you  keep  your  heart  safe 
in  the  war  of  tribulation.  Believe  me,  you  with  your  doubts 
are  more  pleasing  to  our  Lord,  than  I  without  them."  He 
went  on  then  to  speak  of  subscription.  He  regretted  that 
men  were  not  asked  to  subscribe  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles. 
There  is  freedom  in  strict  subscription,  and  one  gets  rid  of 
vague  standards,  such  as  that  which  some  men  call  Cathol- 
icity. In  speaking  of  the  Pastoral,  he  astonished  the  men 
by  saying  that  he  had  no  objection  to  the  most  criticized 
sentence:  "Fixedness  of  interpretation  is  of  the  essence  of 
the  Creed."  Of  course  there  were  different  aspects  of  the 
same  truth,  and  the  Pastoral  does  not  deny  that;  but, 
down  deep  beneath  the  surface  of  the  central  doctrines, 
there  is  one  unvarying  motive.  Then  he  spoke  at  length  of 
the  Virgin  Birth.  And  then  he  made  his  appeal:  "Have 
peace  with  authority,  no  man  forbidding  you.  Dear 
brethren,  dear  friends,  dear  children!  take  to  yourselves 
the  great  words  of  Scripture  as  your  own:  'O  Timothy, 
keep  that  which  is  committed  to  thee  .  .  .  hold  fast  the 
form  of  sound  words.'     Remember  the  words  of  Christ: 


156  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

'  As  My  Father  hath  sent  Me '  .  .  .  And  He  breathed  on 
them,  and  said,  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost,  whosoever 
sins  ...  Go  ye  into  all  the  world."  .  .  .  Once  more 
it  was  as  if  one  had  been  in  church  at  a  great  service, 
and  all  hearts  were  lifted  up.  But  Bishop  Whitehead,  who 
was  present  as  the  Commencement  preacher,  wrote  a  few 
days  later  that  a  brother  bishop  had  asked  him  for  the 
substance  of  his  remarks,  which  he  had  heard  were  very 
radical.  This  Bishop  Whitehead  refused  to  do,  but  asked 
Dr.  Allen  if  he  cared  to  do  anything  about  it.  Dr.  Allen 
willingly  wrote  down  what  he  had  said  about  the  Virgin 
birth,  and,  thanks  to  this  incident,  that  part  of  his  speech 
may  be  reproduced  in  his  own  words: 

"My  remarks  opened  with  an  affirmation  of  my  belief  in  the 
Creed  and  Articles  and  other  Formularies  of  the  Church;  more 
particularly  of  my  belief  in  the  article  of  the  Creed  which  asserts 
the  Virgin  Birth,  taking  the  words,  'He  was  conceived  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,'  to  mean  that  our  Lord's  con- 
ception was  after  a  unique,  miraculous  manner.  I  also  affirmed 
the  vital  relationship  of  the  cycle  of  miraculous  facts  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation;  viz.,  the  Virgin  Birth,  the  Resur- 
rection, and  Ascension.  Also  that  the  Ancient  Creeds  which 
affirm  these  things  as  central  truths  are  to  be  believed  because 
they  may  be  proved  by  most  sure  warrant  of  Holy  Scripture. 

"I  then  went  on  to  say  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Virgin  Birth 
had  received  such  speculative  treatment  in  the  Roman  Church, 
and  such  additions  or  glosses,  as  to  minister  to  the  glorification 
of  Mary  rather  than  of  Christ.  This  tendency  appeared  among 
the  Gnostics  of  the  second  century,  who  wrote  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  these  glosses,  according 
to  which  Mary  was  represented  as  sinless,  or  as  not  dying  a 
natural  death,  but  taken  up  into  heaven,  after  the  analogy  of 
Christ's  Ascension.  This  disposition  to  magnify  Mary  as  if  a 
divine  being  continued  to  develop  in  the  Roman  Church  during 
the  middle  ages  until  Mary  was  practically  deified,  and  more 
commonly  regarded  as  the  mediator  between  God  and  man 
than  our  Lord  Himself.    The  Commemoration  of  Mary  occu- 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  157 

pied  a  large  proportion  of  the  Christian  Year,  almost  rivalling 
that  of  our  Lord.     She  had  her  Psalter  and  her  Te  Deum. 

"The  Reformers  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  16th  cen- 
tury regarded  the  worship  of  Mary  as  idolatry  and  returned  in 
this  respect  to  the  teaching  and  practice  of  the  Apostolic  Age 
or  the  Early  Church.  These  English  Reformers  who  revised 
or  remoulded  the  Services  and  formularies  of  the  Church  of 
England,  giving  them  their  present  shape,  one  and  all  affirmed 
the  doctrine  of  the  Virgin  Birth,  and  held  the  Virgin  Mother 
in  special  veneration.  But,  also,  they  held  the  article  of  the 
Virgin  Birth  in  some  different  way  from  that  of  the  Church  of 
Rome:  they  did  not  give  it  the  same  prominence;  e.g.,  in  the 
Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent  several  pages  are  devoted  to 
a  speculative  expansion  of  the  subject,  and  so  also  of  the  later 
Confessions  of  the  Greek  Church.  The  Reformers  of  the 
Church  of  England  refrain  from  any  speculative  exposition  of 
the  subject  either  in  the  Catechism  or  the  Articles. 

"It  would  be  unjust  to  argue  that  because  the  Anglican 
Reformers  do  not  give  this  fact  of  the  Virgin  Birth  the  promi- 
nence which  it  possesses  in  the  Roman  Church,  or  do  not 
attempt  to  speculate  upon  or  expand  it,  therefore  they  do  not 
hold  the  doctrine.  We  must  apply  the  same  caution  to  the 
case  of  St.  Paul.  It  has  been  said  that  because  St.  Paul  gives 
the  doctrine  no  prominence  in  his  Epistles  or  no  theological 
exposition,  therefore  he  could  have  attached  no  importance  to 
it,  even  if  he  accepted  it  at  all.  But  we  must  hold  that  St.  Paul 
assumes  it,  takes  it  for  granted  and  builds  upon  it.  A  recent 
writer,  Professor  Ropes,  has  shown  I  think  that  he  undoubtedly 
refers  to  it.  In  the  same  way  must  be  explained  the  fact  that 
this  Article  of  the  Virgin  Birth  was  not  contained  in  the  Creed 
of  Nicaea  —  an  omission  which  Dr.  Pusey  in  his  book  on  the 
Councils  confessed  his  inability  to  explain.  Here  again  we  must 
assume  that  it  was  taken  for  granted.  That  the  bishops  present 
at  the  Council  believed  in  the  Virgin  Birth  cannot  be  doubted. 
There  was  no  question  of  its  denial;  even  Arius  accepted  it. 

"The  same  caution  should  apply  to  works  in  theology  by 
Protestant  writers  treating  of  the  Person  of  Christ  or  of  the  In- 
carnation in  which  no  prominence  is  given  to  the  Virgin  Birth, 
or  where  it  is  even  rarely  alluded  to;    e.g.,  Mr.  Wilberforce's 


158  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

book  on  the  Incarnation,  or  Lux  Mundi,  which  is  a  treatise 
on  the  same  subject.  The  doctrine  is  assumed,  taken  for 
granted,  even  when  not  mentioned. 

"Another  difference  between  the  Anglican  Reformers  and 
Roman  Catholic  theologians  was  this:  the  former  held  Mary  to 
be  a  sinner  like  all  others,  while  the  latter  held  that  she  had 
been  exempt  from  actual  sins  as  well  as  from  original  sin.  In 
their  controversial  writings,  the  Anglican  Reformers  are  occu- 
pied with  maintaining  this  thesis  —  that  Mary  was  a  sinner 
like  all  others  and  that  she  was  saved  as  all  others  are  by  faith 
in  Christ  as  a  Redeemer.  This  necessity  of  their  argument 
may  seem  to  give  a  certain  negative  tone  to  their  teaching, 
but  this  is  in  appearance  only:  they  were  not  deprecating  the 
dignity  or  sanctity  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  nor  did  they  cease  in 
consequence  to  hold  her  in  special  veneration. 

"The  Anglican  Reformers  seem  also  to  have  been  unanimous 
in  affirming  the  importance  of  what  they  designated  '  the  spirit- 
ual motherhood'  as  compared  with  what  they  called  the  'nat- 
ural' or  'carnal  motherhood.'  With  noticeable  uniformity  do 
they  refer  to  the  passage  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark  (iii.  32  ff .)  or 
the  parallel  passages  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  when  they 
are  endeavouring  to  overcome  the  tendency  to  exalt  Mary  to 
divine  honours.  When  Christ  was  informed  that  His  mother 
and  His  brethren  stood  without,  desiring  to  speak  with  Him, 
He  looked  round  about  on  those  who  sat  with  Him  and  said, 
'Who  is  My  mother  who  are  My  brethren:  whosoever  doeth 
the  will  of  My  Father  in  heaven,  the  same  is  My  mother  and 
sister  and  brother.'  The  Anglican  Reformers  maintained  that 
this  relationship  to  Christ,  which  they  called  'spiritual  mother- 
hood' was  a  higher  relationship  than  the  'natural  motherhood.' 
For  example,  Bishop  Latimer  speaking  of  Mary  said,  'She  was 
not  saved  because  she  was  His  natural  mother,  but  because  she 
was  His  spiritual  mother.'  So  also  Bishop  Jewell  of  Salisbury, 
in  his  controversy  with  Harding  the  Jesuit,  'To  be  the  child  of 
God  is  a  great  deal  greater  than  to  be  the  mother  of  God.'  It 
may  have  seemed  to  their  opponents  in  the  Roman  Church  as  if 
the  Anglican  Reformers  were  here  spiritualizing  away  the  his- 
toric fact  of  the  Virgin  Birth  or  depreciating  its  significance. 
But  they  were  doing  nothing  of  the  kind.     They  held  the  doc- 


CHOSEN  BROOKS'S  BIOGRAPHER  i59 

trine  as  most  true  and  important.  They  retained  the  Ancient 
Creeds  which  bore  witness  to  it  and  gave  them  a  more  prominent 
place  in  the  common  worship  than  they  had  in  the  Roman 
Church. 

"These  Creeds  contain  the  essential  articles  of  Christian 
belief.  As  it  would  be  wrong  to  detract  from  them  by  denial, 
so  also  we  must  guard  against  the  opposite  danger  of  adding  to 
them  by  our  speculations,  wherein  also  the  Church  of  Rome  has 
erred.  It  is  possible  to  neutralize  the  power  of  the  Incarnation 
in  either  of  these  ways,  by  addition  as  well  as  by  subtraction." 

In  sending  this,  Dr.  Allen  made  only  one  request  —  that 
it  should  not  get  into  print,  since  he  believed  it  too  brief 
and  inadequate  for  that  purpose. 

During  August  he  wrote  to  his  brother:  "I  have  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  Mr.  William  Brooks,  Phillips  Brooks's 
oldest  brother,  and  another  from  Mrs.  Arthur  Brooks, 
saying  that  they  have  fixed  on  me  to  take  up  the  Memoir 
and  complete  it  —  and  me  already  up  to  the  neck  in  work 
which  I  cannot  accomplish!  I  have  two  minds  about  it. 
I  can  see  that  this  is  a  great  opportunity  for  straightening 
out  the  tangle  in  the  Church.  But  to  take  the  Memoir  in 
addition  to  Christian  Institutions  seems  almost  suicidal." 

Later  he  told  his  brother:  "I  spent  the  first  week  in 
October  with  Mrs.  Arthur  Brooks  in  New  York,  going  over 
Arthur's  MSS.  and  reading  letters  and  various  papers. 
The  result  of  which  is  that  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
to  take  up  the  Biography.  Arthur's  work  will  stand  by 
itself,  though  it  will  need  much  labour  in  editing.  It  is  a 
first  rough  draft.  ...  So  my  work  is  laid  out.  Xn. 
Ins.  is  to  be  finished  in  a  hurry,  and  if  possible  finished 
next  spring:  on  that  I  work  every  morning.  Afternoons 
and  evenings  —  some  or  most  of  them  —  I  am  to  give  up 
to  reading  the  Brooks  papers,  in  order  to  familiarize  myself 
with  the  material.  Perhaps  it  is  unwise.  I  don't  feel 
sure  that  it  isn't,  but  it  all  interests  me  again,  as  I  haven't 
been  for  a  long  time,  and  I  feel  equal  to  it  at  present.     I 


160  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

shouldn't  have  taken  the  Biography  if  I  hadn't  felt  from 
what  I  saw  of  the  documents  that  it  might  be  made  an 
interesting  book.  But  it  is  an  awesome  sort  of  thing  to  be 
admitted  in  this  way  to  the  sacred  penetralia  of  a  man's  life." 

Meantime  an  article  entitled  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge 
appeared  anonymously  in  the  September  Atlantic.  Other 
pupils  of  Coleridge  wrote  to  the  publishers  to  know  who 
this  was  who  could  so  deftly  paint  their  teacher.  Those 
who  knew  him  best  suspected  him  at  once.  He  revealed 
himself  in  the  words  about  reading  the  human  face,  in  the 
gentleness  of  his  moral  judgments,  in  the  high  value  put 
upon  imagination,  which  he  afterwards  said  was  only  the 
power  of  clear  sight.  As  we  read,  "His  constitution  was 
delicate  and  highly  organized,"  we  think  of  the  author  of 
the  article  more  than  of  Coleridge.  He  declared  his  love 
of  Coleridge's  verse,  but  more  than  all  he  bowed  before 
his  "endless  suggestiveness." 

In  all  this  work  for  the  larger  public  he  was  not  forgetting 
his  first  duty  —  the  responsibility  to  his  pupils.  To  a 
pupil  whose  ordination,  because  of  his  mental  difficulties, 
now  proved  impossible,  he  wrote  words  of  sympathy  and 
encouragement.  "I  know,"  he  said,  "how  great  a  trial 
it  must  be  to  you,  and  what  a  great  demand  it  makes  upon 
the  whole  man  to  meet  it.  .  .  .  All  the  higher  intellec- 
tual fields  offer  a  sacred  calling,  and  the  opportunity  for 
spiritual  influence.  ...  It  has  been  a  very  painful 
year  in  the  Church.  Suspicion  and  misrepresentation  and 
accusations  without  grounds  have  been  the  difficulties  we 
have  had  to  contend  with.  ...  I  may  assure  you  of 
my  confidence  in  your  powers  to  do  a  great  and  most  useful 
work,  even  if  it  be  not  the  ministry  that  gives  you  the 
opening.  All  this  trial  will,  I  am  sure,  in  the  long  run 
prove  to  have  been  of  the  highest  service  in  the  develop- 
ment of  character  and  disinterested  sincerity.  May  God 
bless  you  and  be  with  you,  as  indeed  we  know  He  is."  So 
he  turned  a  soul  from  bitterness. 


MAURICE  161 

To  another  former  pupil  he  wrote: 

m  "Cambridge,  November  16,  1895. 

.Dear  • 

"I  feel  ashamed  of  myself  in  neglecting  so  long  to  write  to 
you.  Last  summer  I  unfortunately  got  malaria  at  West  Point, 
which  made  even  the  slightest  effort  a  burden.  Since  I  got 
back  to  Cambridge  I  have  been  immersed  in  work,  writing  on 
Xn.  Ins.  and  reading  up  for  the  Brooks  Memoir,  which  I  never 
should  have  taken.  I  have  also  promised  an  article  for  Lyman 
Abbott  for  The  Outlook  —  one  of  a  series  on  The  Prophets, 
as  he  calls  them,  in  which  Maurice  figures,  on  whom  I  am  to 
write.  As  I  have  been  turning  the  subject  over  in  my  mind 
it  occurred  to  me  that  your  impressions  of  Maurice  would  be  a 
help  to  me.  I  have  read  him  so  much  at  intervals  that  it  is 
hard  to  disentangle  him  from  my  own  thought  and  to  present 
him  as  a  distinct  figure.  I  am  inclined  to  fasten  on:  (1)  His 
home  life,  the  reconciliation  of  the  father  and  the  mother,  whom 
he  postulated  as  both  right  however  they  differed  or  contra- 
dicted each  other;  then  (2)  the  influence  of  Coleridge,  who 
passed  from  a  sort  of  Pantheism  to  the  Divine  Personality,  and 
from  the  predominance  of  the  intellect  to  the  practical  con- 
science as  revealing  the  Divine  Will;  (3)  the  Doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  as  Maurice's  great  dogma  —  and  as  including  his  doc- 
trine of  Sacrifice;  (4)  retention  of  the  Evangelical  principle  in 
his  conception  of  the  proclamation  of  the  Gospel  as  a  message 
of  deliverance  —  which  was  the  main  substance  of  his  preach- 
ing —  but  deliverance  viewed  in  its  world  relations,  as  well  as 
in  individual;  (5)  the  idea  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  as  an  actual 
relationship,  antecedent  to  its  recognition,  and  existing  even 
when  its  moral  obligations  were  ignored  —  hence  his  view  of 
Baptismal  Regeneration  and  of  human  sonship;  (6)  the  prepara- 
tion of  his  work  as  a  thinker  and  teacher,  in  his  studies,  espe- 
cially in  Church  History,  of  which  he  was  Professor  in  King's 
College,  where  his  teaching  brought  on  the  crisis,  in  his  doctri- 
nal attitude  toward  endless  punishment.  (He  not  only  indulged 
a  pious  hope  of  the  restoration  of  all  men,  but  he  positively 
affirmed  that  the  very  nature  of  God  and  his  relationship  to  the 
soul  made  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  for  any  soul 
impossible);  (7)  his  intellectual  freedom  and  open  hospitality 


162  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

to  all  exercise  of  the  intellect,  as  always  of  a  positive  character 
and  as  representing  aspects  of  the  great  reality.  That  word 
'aspects,'  which  is  the  modern  word  in  Church  History,  he  was 
one  of  the  first  to  anticipate.  He  seems  to  me  to  have  retained 
the  Calvinistic,  which  is  the  monistic,  principle  as  perhaps  the 
most  influential  motive  in  his  experience  —  and  also  its  supreme 
exaltation  of  the  Scriptures.  But  how  does  the  freedom  come 
in,  unless  in  and  through  the  Incarnation,  which  the  Calvinists 
did  not  hold,  but  subordinated  to  the  Atonement  ? 

"The  only  things  which  he  seems  to  have  hated  were  Pusey 
and  his  dogmatism,  which  he  regarded  as  atheistic,  and  so  of  the 
whole  sacerdotal  system. 

"  How  does  this  strike  you,  and  would  you  recognize  the  man? 

"I  think  you  must  read  Coleridge's  A nima  Poetae,  just  pub- 
lished. Coleridge  was  the  man  from  whom  this  whole  move- 
ment proceeds,  and  one  gets  it  most  clearly  in  some  of  its 
features  by  going  back  to  its  source.  It  seems  to  me  as  though 
what  was  needed  to-day  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  alive  and 
think,  is  that  they  should  restate  for  the  benefit  of  their  benighted 
brethren,  how  they  come  to  be  where  they  are.  Why  is  it  that 
we  have  such  a  profound  aversion  to  Pusey  and  his  dogmas  ? 
I  should  say,  because  he  shuts  up  God  and  His  Revelation  some- 
where in  the  distant  past,  making  of  the  Church  a  sort  of  dun- 
geon for  the  human  soul  —  from  which  the  light  is  excluded  or 
comes  through  narrow  chinks.  Maurice  had  the  Coleridgean 
idea  of  all  life  as  the  medium  of  the  divine  revelation;  and  the 
events  of  life,  and  human  experience  also,  as  the  agencies  by 
which  doctrines  are  exploited  and  seen  to  express  the  eternal 
aspects  of  the  reality. 

"I  have  found  it  difficult  to  explain  or  account  for  the 
obscurity  in  Maurice's  writings.  One  must  admit  the  charge  — 
so  many  have  made  it.  Whatever  the  explanation,  it  did  not 
come  from  lack  of  clear  mind  or  clear  convictions,  or  literary 
ability  of  expression;  nor  from  lack  of  knowledge,  or  of  having 
thought  out  processes,  etc.  I  don't  think  it  embarrasses  those 
any  longer  who  are  in  sympathy  with  his  ruling  ideas.  Was  it 
that  the  truth  he  saw  was  too  complex,  just  as  life  itself  is,  for 
its  easy  reduction  to  a  formula?  And  is  there  not,  after  all, 
some  mysterious  difficulty  in  the  adjustment  of  thought  and 


OBSCURITY  OF  MAURICE'S  STYLE         163 

reality  which  always  requires  effort?  There  is  one  standing 
comparison  for  the  combination  of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual 
life  —  in  the  outer  world  —  that  the  sun  should  appear  to  the 
natural  vision  to  go  round  the  earth.  It  has  required  an  effort 
now  these  300  years  —  and  I  think  always  will  require  it  —  to 
correct  the  natural  vision  by  the  knowledge  of  the  actual  fact. 
The  difficulty  has  entered  into  the  construction  of  human 
language,  and  even  our  speech  remains  in  error. 

"Some  such  comparison  explains  perhaps  how  it  is  that  the 
short  and  easy  natural  mind  is  thrown  into  confusion  in  the 
theological  sphere  by  the  effort  to  read  Maurice,  who  places 
the  earth  of  human  experience  into  true  relations  with  the 
revealing  Light  of  God. 

"I  hope  all  this  will  not  bore  you  to  read.  It  is  written  too 
rapidly  and  carelessly,  but  if  it  moves  you  to  any  criticism,  I 

shall  be  grateful.     I  hope  you  are  enjoying  your  work  at 

and  are  as  happy  as  you  can  be,  even  if  not  quite  contented,  as 
no  man  ought  to  be. 

"Ever  affectionately  yours, 

"A.  V.  G.  Allen." 

To  this  same  pupil  he  wrote  a  week  later: 

u  <  "  Cambridge,  November  24,  1895. 

"Thank  you  for  your  beautiful  letter  about  the  Memoir, 
which  delighted  me,  but  also  saddened  me,  because  I  know  so 
well  my  limitations  —  the  impossibility  of  my  realizing  your 
expectations  or  ideal.  But  it  encourages  and  helps  me  that 
you  think  I  can  do  it.  I  have  not  begun  to  write  yet,  but  am 
studying  the  materials  for  the  picture.  And  I  will  say  that  it 
begins  to  stand  out  in  my  imagination  in  the  beauty  of  its  detail, 
and  in  the  impressiveness  of  the  grand  total,  as  I  hardly  thought 
I  should  be  able  to  see  it.  A  biography  is  like  a  painting,  or 
some  work  of  art,  which  requires  skilful  treatment  of  lights  and 
shades,  apart  from  one's  knowledge  of  the  material.  The  first 
thing  to  do  is  to  see  the  man  clearly,  unembarrassed  by  what 
you  think  you  know  of  him.  It  takes  time  to  let  the  minute 
knowledge,  gained  by  coming  into  the  intimacy  of  his  life,  sub- 
side into  its  proper  relation.  I  am  surprised  as  I  study  the 
note-books,  of  which  he  kept  so  many,  to  find  how  much  he  is 


164  TRIALS  AND  VICTORIES 

contributing  to  his  own  portraiture.  The  whole  process  of  his 
life  opens  up  there  as  it  does  not  elsewhere  in  his  writings.  He 
began  these  note-books,  in  which  he  recorded  his  own  thoughts, 
observations  on  books,  and  especially  on  life,  together  with 
quotations  which  struck  him,  when  he  was  in  the  Seminary,  and 
he  kept  them  up  till  the  last  year  of  his  life.  He  did  not  put 
so  much  of  himself  into  his  correspondence.  Nor  in  his  note- 
books is  he  very  subjective,  as  we  call  it.  He  kept  no  religious 
journal,  as  it  used  to  be  fashionable  to  do,  and  it  would  not  have 
been  like  him  to  do  so.  Those  religious  journals  were  always  an 
anomaly,  for  neither  the  reader,  nor  the  writer  himself  even,  is 
able  to  say  whether  they  are  intended  for  the  eye  of  God  alone, 
or  whether  they  are  so  put  that  the  public  may  be  allowed  to 
see  them.  There  is  a  note  of  hollowness,  or  affectation,  or 
possible  insincerity,  or  else  a  note  of  economy,  in  them  all, 
more  or  less  from  Augustine,  who  started  them,  down  to  our 
own  day. 

"  But  I  must  not  allow  myself  to  dwell  on  the  Memoir,  or  I 
shall  begin  writing  it  before  I  am  ready. 

"Thank  you  for  the  letter  on  Maurice,  which  is  just  what  I 
wanted,  and  has  given  me  some  things  which  I  should  have 
neglected.  Have  you  ever  felt  the  deficiency  in  him,  that  he 
seems  to  have  had  no  love  of  nature?  Do  you  know  any  allu- 
sions in  his  books  which  would  show  appreciation  of  its  beauty 
or  love  of  its  life?  I  think  he  was  shut  up  to  the  things  of  the 
spirit,  and  perhaps  too  exclusively.  This  was  his  Calvinistic 
inheritance.  Robertson,  I  think,  loved  nature  for  its  own  sake, 
which  not  only  lends  richness  and  body  to  his  theology,  but 
gives  him  a  comprehensive  relation  to  issues  in  theology 
which  Maurice  neglected.  I  find  that  question  of  the  mutual 
dependence  of  spirit  and  matter  underlying  all  the  institutions 
of  the  Church. 

"Thank  you  again  for  your  beautiful  and  helpful  letters, 
which  are  like  you,  and  believe  me, 

"Ever  sincerely  and  affectionately  yours, 

"  A.  V.  G.  Allen." 

Thus  -he  followed  his  pupils,  giving  them  encouragement 
and   trust.    They  were   always  much  to  him;    perhaps 


TWO  GREAT  TASKS  165 

they  were  most  in  these  loneliest    years  of  the  middle 
nineties. 

And  so  the  year  1895  came  to  a  close.  Towards  the  end 
of  it  the  School  lost  by  death  one  of  its  trustees,  Governor 
Rice;  and  the  financial  situation  was  strained,  in  spite  of 
Mrs.  Augustus  Lowell's  bequest  of  $10,000.  The  year  to 
Dr.  Allen  personally  had  been  quite  as  hard  as  the  two 
years  just  before  it,  but  the  task  of  writing  the  Life  of 
Phillips  Brooks  was  an  enormous  boon.  What  seemed  a 
burden  became  an  increasing  joy.  Day  after  day  he  lived 
with  his  friend,  as  never  even  in  the  beautiful  past.  There 
was  tyranny  of  servants  in  the  kitchen,  to  which  he  sub- 
mitted meekly;  there  was  low  thunder  from  the  ecclesias- 
tical firmament  without;  but  the  hours  of  poring  over 
Phillips  Brooks's  letters  and  journals  were  hours  of  happi- 
ness and  peace.  In  them  he  found,  as  Brooks  himself  had 
told  him,  that  God  gives  his  good  gifts  for  ever.  The  power 
to  do  returned.  He  was  to  work  upon  two  great  tasks, 
after  finding  one  alone  impossible;  and  he  knew  that  he 
should  accomplish  them. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

1896-1898 

THE  year  1896  opened  with  a  new  sorrow.  January 
10,  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor :  "  I  got  the  telegram 
telling  me  that  Posie  was  gone,  at  one  o'clock.  .  .  .  To- 
night as  I  sit  here  alone  in  the  house,  I  feel  that  your 
thoughts  and  mine  are  running  on  the  same  subject,  that 
the  news  comes  to  you,  as  to  me,  an  awful  sorrow.  It  was 
a  beautiful  life,  and  how  we  loved  him !  How  good  he  was, 
and  true,  and  faithful.  I  am  thinking  how  the  love  is  going 
out  from  our  lives,  yet  perhaps  it  is  only  intensified.  He 
will  not  forget  his  friends.  .  .  .  Well,  I  only  meant  this 
for  my  relief,  —  there  is  no  one  here  to  listen." 

Then,  very  late  that  night  (evidently  he  could  not  sleep), 
he  wrote  to  his  brother:  "I  have  a  few  hours  to  wait  before 
starting,  in  which  I  find  I  can  do  nothing,  so  I  write  of  him. 
We  became  intimate  friends  thirty-seven  years  ago,  and 
nothing  has  interrupted  the  intimacy  all  that  time.  He 
was  good  in  every  pore  of  his  being,  honest,  never  did  a 
mean  thing  in  his  life,  true  as  steel  in  his  friendship.  He 
was  rather  a  proud  man,  proud  of  his  family;  he  liked 
riches;  he  thought  much  of  the  esteem  of  the  world;  yet 
all  went  for  nothing  compared  with  his  interest  in  religion. 
Once  a  year  at  least  during  all  these  years  we  have  met, 
and  it  was  always  a  pure  delight  to  be  with  him.  .  .  .  Well, 
you  must  excuse  this  letter." 

Again  he  wrote  to  the  pupil  with  whom  he  had 
corresponded  about  his  impressions  of  Maurice:  "I  have 

166 


BROWNING  167 

finished  and  sent  off  the  Maurice  article  after  spending  a 
most  disproportionate  amount  of  time  on  what  seems  like  a 
slight  effort.  I  had  to  rewrite  it  three  times,  for  it  was  not 
till  the  last  moment  that  I  began  to  see  clearly  the  man 
whom  I  thought  I  had  known  all  my  life.  Then  it  dawned 
upon  me  that  he  was  not  a  voice  out  of  any  age,  but  out  of 
what  was  most  distinctive  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
that  he  must  be  painted  with  his  age  as  a  background.  I 
also  saw  what  never  occurred  to  me  before  —  that  he  never 
really  struggled  with  the  question  of  the  miracle,  which  has 
been  the  crux  of  modern  religious  inquiry.  But  this  I 
didn't  treat  in  my  article,  for  there  was  no  space,  and  I 
couldn't  have  made  it  clear.  Do  you  know  of  any  place 
where  he  goes  into  the  miraculous?  He  accepted  the 
miracle  of  course,  and  had  no  difficulty  with  the  Creed  on 
that  score.  He  tries  in  a  letter  to  Hutton  to  show  its  sig- 
nificance.    But  it  is  evident  Hutton  was  not  satisfied. 

"And  now  as  to  Browning.  I  wish  I  knew  more  than  I 
do.  I  have  made  many  ineffectual  efforts  to  read  him.  I 
do  read  him,  but  only  now  and  then.  If  he  found  me,  of 
course  I  should  read  him  more.  I  wonder  what  the  trouble 
is.  There  are  things  of  his  which  I  profoundly  admire, 
such  as  Saul  and  The  Grammarian 's  Funeral.  But  I  have  a 
feeling  that  those  who  read  and  study  him  most  seem  to 
stop  there,  and  take  him  for  life  itself,  and  study  life  in  him 
and  his  writings,  and  don't  do  it  for  themselves.  What 
one  wants  is  the  clew  and  motive  to  do  what  Browning 
does  for  one's  self.  I  know  several  Browning  men  who  are 
great  in  Browning  Societies,  but  don't  get  any  farther. 
He  seems  to  satisfy  them  and  is  so  inexhaustible  that  they 
go  about  proclaiming  him;  and  the  fresh  mystery  before 
their  eyes  they  do  not  see.  How  far  I  am  right  in  all  this 
you  will  know.  Perhaps  it  is  a  very  wrong  impression, 
and  the  men  whom  I  am  inwardly  criticizing  and  condemn- 
ing might  not  have  done  as  much  as  they  have  if  it  had 
not  been  for  him.     But  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  any  of 


168  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

them  touches  bottom  for  himself.  And  there  is  where  a 
man  like  Coleridge  comes  in  with  an  endless  suggestiveness, 
which  never  satisfies,  but  he  got  glimpses  all  round  in  every 
direction.  Browning  was  too  comfortable  and  smug  and 
enjoyed  life  too  much  as  a  man  of  the  world  to  be  the 
greatest  prophet.  Now  write  and  tell  me  where  I  am 
wrong. 

"I  had  a  very  painful  duty  a  week  ago  in  saying  the 
Church  service  over  my  oldest  and  best  friend  as  he  lay  in 
his  grave.  His  death  has  been  a  heavy  blow.  These 
things  depress  me,  but  life  was  meant  to  be  cheerful, 
and  the  cheerfulness  and  unconscious  joy  of  childhood  is 
the  true  attitude  —  the  truest  interpretation  of  the  two 
worlds. 

"I  have  just  done  a  notice  of  Reville's  Origines  de 
VEpiscopat  for  The  New  World.  You  must  read  Reville's 
book." 

His  older  son,  now  fitted  to  be  an  electrical  engineer,  was 
at  home  for  a  few  months  awaiting  an  opportunity,  to  his 
father's  great  comfort.  "I  try  to  understand  it  all,"  Dr. 
Allen  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor,  "and  to  talk  sympathetically, 
but,  oh!  how  foreign  it  is  to  what  has  been  my  life  work  — 
dealing  with  ideas  and  subtle  interpretations  of  historical 
experience.  .  .  .  Now  I  am  trying  to  interpret  'things' 
and  find  a  place  for  them  in  my  system,  but  it  is  not  easy. 
It  comes  too  late." 

To  a  recent  graduate,  who  was  going  to  a  distant  field, 
where  ecclesiastical  panics  had  been  known,  he  wrote  this 
fall:  "If  you  go,  God  keep  you  from  being  wounded  in  any 
of  these  bitter  ecclesiastical  ways  which  are  so  hard  to 
endure  and  forgive  and  forget."  Evidently  he  was  think- 
ing of  Nantucket  once  more. 

"I  have  spent  the  summer  here  in  Cambridge,"  he  wrote 
to  his  brother  in  August,  "at  work  on  Christian  Institu- 
tions. I  began  the  book  de  novo  last  November.  I  had  to 
discard  all  I  had  written,  for  I  had  outgrown  my  earlier 


THE  POPE  ON  ORDERS  169 

plan.  I  have  worked  with  a  sense  of  haste.  The  stock  of 
manuscript  lies  before  me,  and  I  hardly  know  what  it 
contains  or  what  I  think  of  it.  I  would  give  a  good  deal 
to  have  you  here  to  give  a  candid  opinion  of  it." 

In  October  he  delivered  a  lecture  on  Ancient  Liturgies  at 
Union  Seminary.  "They  are  prepared  there  for  a  good 
deal  of  ceremonial,  I  thought,"  he  afterwards  wrote,  "as 
ready  with  their  gowns  and  hoods  as  in  our  own  Church. 
Nor  are  they  afraid  of  ritual.  The  world  is  changing  in 
that  respect,  towards  more  form  in  every  direction,  Church 
and  State  alike.  It  must  be  part  of  a  process  which  means 
something  —  the  effort  to  increase  reverence  and  respect 
for  institutions  —  a  check,  it  may  be,  to  revolutionary 
tendencies  in  society.  ...  I  suppose  you  encounter 
the  silver  sentiment  where  you  are:  here  it  is  almost 
wholly  wanting.  But  what  a  grand  process  it  has  been  to 
witness  a  great  Nation  setting  itself  to  learn  the  principles 
of  finance.     It  has  surely  its  ideal,  hopeful  side. 

"Have  you  read  the  Pope's  encyclical  on  Anglican 
Orders?  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  he  finally  closed  the  Oxford 
Movement.  It  is  a  severe  blow  to  High  Anglicans  or 
Ritualists,  more  so  than  they  will  at  first  perceive.  It 
destroys  their  ideal  and  aspiration.  Of  late  they  have  been 
drawing  very  close  in  spirit  to  the  Holy  Father  (in  Rome), 
and  now  he  spurns  them.  They  have  no  objective  point, 
they  cannot  hope  to  remake  the  Anglican  Church.  It 
seems  to  me  the  only  alternative  now  is  submission  to 
Rome  or  a  return  to  Protestantism.  Now  perhaps  things 
may  be  discussed  on  their  merits." 

In  The  Outlook  for  November  7,  1896,  he  contributed  an 
article  on  The  Pope's  Bull.  His  conclusion  was  that  the 
Pope's  declared  attitude  would  help  the  Anglican  Church 
because,  now  more  than  ever,  so  far  as  those  who  respected 
Rome  were  concerned,  the  argument  for  the  validity  of 
Anglican  orders  and  sacraments  must  rest  upon  an  inward 
and  spiritual  conviction.     We  shall  know  them  by  their 


1 7o  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

fruits;  we  shall  know  by  an  inner  experience  that  they  are 
valid,  because  they  minister  to  our  spiritual  life." 

He  wrote  in  November  to  Miss  Brace,  who  was  in  Italy 
studying  St.  Francis:  "You  are  right  in  thinking  him  a 
more  modern  man  than  any  other  of  his  time,  or  for  a  long 
time  after.  He  has  grown  very  much  of  late  in  the  estima- 
tion of  those  who  are  seeking  to  explain  the  philosophical 
movement  of  history,  as  the  greatest  reformer  before  the 
Reformation.  Everything  seems  as  if  it  should  be  traced 
back  to  him.  What  made  him  great  —  and  modern  too  — 
was  his  conception  of  doing  good  for  good's  sake,  without 
hope  of  reward.  All  the  Saints  before  him,  the  very  in- 
spiration of  the  Christian  Life,  seem  to  have  been  doing 
good,  or  giving  alms,  because  it  would  add  to  their  treasure 
in  heaven." 

Early  in  January,  1897,  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  Mrs.  Brooks: 
"Life  is  passing  while  I  am  absorbed  in  this  endless  work, 
and  I  don't  realize  it.  Perhaps,  however,  that  is  the  way 
to  take  it,  instead  of  trying  to  cultivate  it  as  a  fine  art,  and 
becoming  self-conscious  of  the  flying  years.  It  is  character- 
istic that  I  have  never  lived  in  the  past,  as  so  many  of  my 
friends  incline,  but  always  in  the  future.  It  is  no  pleasure 
to  me  to  indulge  in  reminiscence." 

On  February  16,  being  the  four  hundredth  anniversary 
of  Melanchthon's  birth,  he  read  a  paper  on  Melanchthon  to 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  He  spoke  of  the 
succession  of  scholars  in  Germany,  ending  with  Harnack. 
"In  one  sense,"  he  said,  "these  men  constitute  a  noble 
army  of  martyrs  for  a  cause  so  high  that  they  get  no 
popular  recognition.  They  constitute  also  a  succession  in 
the  higher  life  of  humanity  which  is  more  precious  than  all 
else  besides.  They  stimulate  and  they  beckon  onward; 
they  hold  out  a  reward,  the  pursuit  of  truth  for  truth's 
sake." 

Dr.  Gordon  read  the  report  of  the  speech  and  said  what 


NOBLE  LECTURESHIP  171 

he  thought  of  it.  Dr.  Allen  replied  immediately:  "Thank 
you  for  your  very  kind  letter,  which  is  worth  much 
more  than  anything  I  said  about  Melanchthon.  .  .  .  We 
must  have  a  long  talk  some  day,  and  I  hope  soon.  You 
are  right  about  the  Miracle.  The  issue  grows  clearer,  and 
it  becomes  the  final  battle-ground  in  theology.  Harnack 
and  most  of  the  Ritschlian  School  have  given  it  up.  It 
bothers  the  students.  It  is  very  difficult  to  defend,  and 
yet  it  is  the  key  of  theology  and  religious  history.  The 
whole  thing  goes,  without  it;  but  it  need  not  be  defended 
as  necessary  to  individual  piety  or  the  soul's  salvation." 

This  spring  an  appeal  came  which  instantly  won  his  con- 
sent. William  Belden  Noble,  a  Harvard  graduate  and  for  a 
short  time  a  member  of  the  School,  died  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career.  He  had  two  heroes  in  the  flesh,  Bishop 
Brooks  and  Dr.  Allen;  and  after  his  death  his  widow  asked 
Dr.  Allen  to  devise  a  memorial  lectureship  at  Harvard 
which  would  associate  Noble's  name  with  that  of  Brooks. 
Dr.  Allen  put  himself  to  eager  effort  to  work  out  the  con- 
ditions of  the  lectureship  in  a  way  to  satisfy  the  University, 
Mrs.  Noble,  and  his  own  ideals  of  one  more  means  of 
bringing  religion  before  intelligent  youth. 

The  work  of  writing  the  last  part  of  Christian  Institu- 
tions went  on  as  the  early  parts  of  the  book  were  going 
through  the  press.  It  was  only  on  June  27  that  he  an- 
nounced to  his  son  that  the  book  was  finished.  When  his 
brother  returned  the  proof,  he  invariably  sent  his  appre- 
ciative comments.  "Thank  you  ever  so  much,"  Dr. 
Allen  wrote,  June  28,  "for  your  encouraging  words.  I 
shall  be  most  severely  criticized  for  running  my  distinction 
between  the  'secular'  and  the  'religious,'  the  bishop  and 
the  monastery,  into  the  sphere  of  theology  and  the  creeds. 
Only  this  would  justify  me  in  having  invaded  the  theologi- 
cal sphere  at  all.  If  it  had  not  been  for  my  main  thesis 
that  the  bishop  and  the  monastery  represent  distinct  phases 
of  Christianity,  which  have  mutually  acted  on  each  other, 


172  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

I  should  not  have  been  justified  in  introducing  theology  at 
all.  It  did  not  dawn  upon  me  that  I  was  running  this 
parallel,  or  that  it  existed  so  clearly  until  I  was  well  under 
way.  If  I  were  to  rewrite,  I  should  lay  it  down  as  my 
thesis  in  the  Introduction.  But  as  it  is,  it  ought  to  crop 
out  pretty  clearly.  Unfortunately  I  have  reached  my 
limit  now,  and  cannot  work  it  in  the  worship  as  I  should 
like.  I  have  dealt  with  Catholic  worship  and  ritual,  and 
have  had  to  let  the  Breviary  slide  with  a  brief  mention. 
Really,  Briggs  did  not  know  what  he  wanted  when  he  asked 
for  a  book  on  the  subject,  nor  did  I  know.  It  has  become 
practically  a  treatise  on  the  external  aspects  of  Christianity, 
with  a  constant  tendency  to  get  inside  to  the  thought  and 
principle.  It  is  not  satisfactory  to  me,  and  I  have  had  to 
omit  large  sections  —  such  as  Christian  Art  involves  —  with 
no  reference  to  them  at  all.  Marriage  and  the  Family 
I  should  have  done  something  with  if  I  had  had  the  space. 
It  has  been  a  long,  tiresome  job,  not  wholly  con  amore, 
too  often  perfunctory.     Still  you  encourage  me  a  little." 

In  August  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor:  "For  these  last 
months,  since  last  November  in  fact,  I  have  worked  like  a 
dog.  I  had  no  Christmas  vacation,  none  at  Easter,  and 
since  School  closed  in  June,  I  have  been  hard  at  it.  Now  I 
am  expecting  to  get  away  for  some  six  weeks  at  Lake 
Champlain.  .  .  .  My  brother  has  been  here  for  a  couple  of 
weeks.  We  did  together  the  most  impressive,  memorable 
thing  in  my  life:  we  went  together  to  Otis,  where  we  were 
born.  I  was  five  years  old  when  we  left  it,  and  had  not 
seen  it  since  —  a  beautiful  village  among  the  hills  with 
the  picturesque  river,  the  Farmington,  flowing  through  it. 
Its  isolation  —  twelve  miles  from  a  railway  station  —  had 
kept  it  unchanged.  We  went  to  the  old  Church  where 
my  father  was  Rector  for  ten  years,  and  were  in  it  alone 
for  half  an  hour  before  the  Service  began.  It  too  was 
unchanged.  But  we  went  none  too  soon;  the  feudal 
overlord  will  be  there  any  day;  they  are  expecting  him." 


CHEYNE  173 

To  one  of  his  pupils  he  wrote  at  this  time:  "Christian 
Institutions  is  printed,  and  the  publishers  wait  for  the  fall 
as  the  fitting  moment  to  introduce  it  to  the  world.  It  is 
far  from  being  what  I  might  have  made  it  if  only  I  could 
have  seen  the  end  from  the  beginning.  One  never  knows 
what  one  is  going  to  do  when  one  sits  down  to  make  a 
book.  You  may  mean  to  do  one  thing  and  a  spirit  which 
you  can't  control  gets  possession  and  drives  you  to  do  its 
own  behest;  you  seem  to  conjure  it  up  out  of  the  mighty 
deep,  and  call  it  thought,  but  it  is  not  yourself;  you  have 
invoked  it,  and  it  has  come  as  it  seems  at  your  bidding, 
but  not  to  do  your  bidding.  You  are  subject  to  its  im- 
pulsion. Such  has  been  my  experience.  It  is  like  daring 
to  receive  a  revelation.  It  is  not  your  own,  it  comes  to 
you.  ...  I  have  been  very  much  shut  out  from  the 
world  and  shut  up  to  myself,  this  last  year,  with  hardly 
an  hour  that  I  could  call  my  own.  Bishop  Brooks's  Life 
will  be  work  of  a  different  kind,  which  calls  one  back  into 
the  world." 

To  one  of  his  former  pupils  he  wrote  in  December: 
"  Everything  looks  as  if  you  were  happy  and  contented  in 
your  work,  and  I  am  happy  that  it  is  so.  Happiness  is 
almost  essential  to  doing  the  best  work  in  the  ministry, 
which  is  so  jealous  a  profession  that  it  seems  to  claim  all  the 
wondrous  gifts  of  God  in  order  to  its  harmonious,  successful 
exercise.  But  one  never  loses  the  need  of  constant  care 
and  watchfulness.  .  .  .  We  are  having  a  treat  here  at 
present  in  Canon  Cheyne  who  is  delivering  the  Lowell 
Lectures  on  the  Post-Exilic  Age  of  Jewish  History.  He  is 
the  type  of  the  scholar  through  and  through:  he  might 
have  stood  for  Browning's  Grammarian.  But  how  radical 
he  is,  and  what  a  world  gulf  now  separates  us  from  the  old 
way  of  studying  Jewish  History.  The  scapegoat,  which 
once  entered  so  largely  into  Evangelical  experience,  he 
treated  with  peculiar  contempt,  dismissing  it  as  a  late 
and  discreditable  imitation  of  some  low,  obscure  savage 


i74  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

ritual.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been  brought  up  an 
Evangelical.  A  number  of  Jews  were  in  his  audience, 
some  of  whom  seem  to  have  been  offended  by  his  treat- 
ment of  the  scapegoat  and  left  the  hall.  ...  I  am  glad  the 
Lambeth  Conference  should  have  taken  such  a  just  view 
of  the  Higher  Criticism." 

He  was  not  content  even  with  the  vast  amount  of  material 
for  the  Memoir,  but  sought  information  right  and  left. 
He  set  down  on  paper  questions  he  wished  answered  about 
Brooks's  college  life:  "Was  he  ambitious?  Why  did  he 
drop  off  in  his  studies  after  the  Freshman  Year?  Was  he 
in  revolt  against  authority  as  some  young  men  of  powerful 
will  and  personality  were  —  was  there  anything  of  Shelley 
in  his  make  up?  Was  he  a  hard  student  in  his  own  way  or 
line?  Was  there  anything  exceptional  about  him  —  any 
eccentricity  such  as  goes  with  genius?  Why  didn't  they 
recognize  his  power,  or  didn't  he  show  it?  Would  they 
call  him  religious?  How  about  his  oratory,  his  appearance  ? 
How  did  he  recite  in  the  class  room?  Did  any  one  influ- 
ence him  in  the  faculty?  When  they  first  heard  him,  how 
did  he  impress  them  —  could  they  trace  his  power  to 
college  days  and  see  then  what  they  didn't  see  at  the  time? 
Did  he  show  any  philosophical  capacity?" 

Miss  Alice  Smith  of  Mt.  Vernon  street,  during  a  long 
illness  had  been  constantly  visited  by  Dr.  Brooks,  after 
as  well  as  before  his  bishopric,  and  Dr.  Allen  was  told  what 
valuable  material  she  must  have  stored  in  her  memory,  for 
her  own  brilliancy  had  drawn  out  his.  "Thank  you,  very 
much,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  her  this  fall,  "for  the  trouble 
you  took  in  getting  for  me  the  remarks  of  Bishop  Brooks 
on  the  subject  of  restricting  immigration." 

Writing  to  his  brother,  he  said,  December  30:  "As  to 
Harnack,  I  don't  see  why  I  should  have  used  him  more  in 
Christian  Institutions.  I  have  referred  to  him  often  enough 
to  show  my  respect.  Without  saying  so,  I  am  fighting 
Harnack's  whole  theory  of  the  Church  and  its  history. 


CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS  175 

What  he  calls  secularization  of  the  Church,  I  am  presenting 
as  a  true,  if  not  the  highest,  phase  of  Christianity.  Har- 
nack  cannot  get  over  the  idea  that  Luther  stands  for 
Christianity,  and  that  his  experience  is  universally  repre- 
sentative. I  incline  to  the  Anglican  type  of  Reformation, 
which  Harnack  in  his  heart  despises." 

The  year  1898  was  marked  by  the  more  serious  criticism 
of  Christian  Institutions.  Most  of  the  reviews  are  worth- 
less, and  not  one  is  really  good.  A  few  men,  competent 
to  judge  Dr.  Allen's  intricate  estimate  of  one  period, 
reviewed  the  book;  but  the  men  who  have  reflected  on  the 
details  of  the  long  process  of  Christian  development  are 
few.  Such  men  found  in  Dr.  Allen's  book  too  much  both  to 
appreciate  and  to  question  to  be  willing  to  speak  at  once. 
Almost  all  the  more  nearly  adequate  reviews  mistook  the 
scope  of  the  book.  It  was  not  intended  to  be  an  account 
of  the  facts  of  Christian  history:  those  were  assumed,  as 
modern  historical  scholarship  has  revealed  them.  What 
Dr.  Allen  was  concerned  to  do  was  to  reveal  the  inner 
meaning  of  the  changes  through  which  the  three  great 
institutions  of  the  Church  had  passed  —  the  officers,  the 
creeds,  the  worship.  He  left  it  to  others  to  define  institu- 
tions; what  he  wished  to  show  was  what  aspects  of  the 
human  spirit  were  declared  in  them. 

Christian  Institutions  is  a  book  open  to  very  serious 
criticisms.  A  book  so  daring,  covering  speculations  about 
the  inner  reasons  for  so  much  in  Christian  history,  could 
not  fail  in  many  places  to  be  fanciful.  The  best  word  to 
use  for  the  book  is  the  word  Dr.  Allen  liked  for  Coleridge: 
it  is  suggestive.  It  opens  the  imagination.  Some  scholars 
would  feel  that  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  has  too  large  a 
place,  and  many  would  begrudge  to  the  heathen  mysteries 
so  large  an  influence  upon  the  Christian  cultus.  But  all 
through  the  book  one  catches  one's  breath  with  awe  before 
the  inevitable  reaching  out  of  the  human  soul  for  God 


176  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

through  the  diverse  means  of  Christian  Institutions.  The 
book  is  full  of  personal  experience.  It  was  written  in  tragic 
and  lonely  years.  It  speaks  sometimes  of  fatigue.  It  is 
no  glib  marshalling  of  facts.  It  assumes  them  for  the 
most  part,  and  from  the  depths  of  life's  mystery  asks  what 
man  means,  what  God  means,  by  the  outward  manners  of 
a  divinely  guided  human  history. 

"I  have  not  read  Dr.  McGifTert's  book  through,"  he 
wrote  in  January,  "but  here  and  there  I  have  turned  to  its 
chapters.  I  feel  the  force  of  your  criticism.  It  is  a  strong, 
scholarly  book:  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  that;  and  it  is 
honest  and  courageous.  But  as  a  presentation  of  Chris- 
tianity, it  is  thin  and  rather  bloodless.  It  goes  upon  the 
supposition  that  the  New  Testament  tells  the  whole  story, 
and  it  does  not  seek  to  interpret  the  New  Testament  by 
the  later  life  of  the  Christian  Church,  which  is  after  all  a 
commentary,  and  the  best  commentary,  upon  it.  I  fan- 
cied a  tendency  in  it  to  make  St.  Paul  the  highest  and  last 
test  of  Christian  teaching.  But  there  were  other  aspects 
of  the  revelation  which  St.  Paul  did  not  enforce.  I  couldn't 
quite  agree  with  his  presentation  of  the  Resurrection  or 
his  treatment  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  But  I  have  a  high 
opinion  of  McGifTert's  ability. 

"By  this  time  you  will  have  read  Canon  Gore's  criticism 
on  Christian  Institutions.  It  was  rather  hard  on  that 
gentle  Johannine  soul  to  have  to  read  through  such  a  book, 
which  contradicts  root  and  branch  all  of  the  naive  presup- 
positions in  theology  as  he  has  received  it  from  Pusey;  or 
history  as  he  has  learned  it  from  Newman,  whose  interpre- 
tation of  the  ancient  Church  and  of  the  ecclesiastical  out- 
look is  to  him  the  last  word  and  the  rock  on  which  he  builds. 
But  Canon  Gore  has  the  defects  of  the  Johannine  tempera- 
ment —  the  flashes  of  indignation  at  being  disturbed  in 
his  reveries.  So  it  was  pretty  hard  to  have  to  read  the 
book  through,  in  order  to  review  it. 

"I  am  glad  that  I  am  busy  and  absorbed  with  another 


DANGER  IN  SOLIDARITY  177 

piece  of  work,  so  that  I  sometimes  feel  as  if  Christian 
Institutions  were  no  business  of  mine.  And  yet  I  would 
gladly  have  had  it  otherwise;  I  would  like  for  once  to  have 
written  something  that  would  please  the  Churchmen,  and 
have  the  bishops  smile  on  me.  Sometimes  I  feel  like  com- 
plaining that  these  other  men  in  the  Church  don't  do 
something.  But  they  stand  off  and  look  on,  not  without 
sympathy  I  suppose,  but  they  keep  quiet,  and  leave  me  to 
do  the  fighting  alone.  However,  there  is  a  sort  of  fate 
about  these  things.  The  occult  influences  and  conjunc- 
tions of  stars  in  the  ecclesiastical  horizon  when  I  was  born 
were  Tract  XC  and  Newman's  perversion.  I  have  been 
watching  that  thing  all  my  life.  It  has  tended  to  destroy 
the  freedom  of  the  Church.  My  sin  is  in  putting  my 
hand  on  the  weak  spot,  and  crying,  See  here!  It  is  one  of 
Dr.  Hort's  remarks  that  so  many  great  truths  in  historical 
religion  are  so  often  identified  with  what  is  false  and  absurd." 

At  the  regular  Sunday  service  at  Appleton  Chapel,  March 
20,  1898,  Dr.  Allen  inaugurated  the  Noble  Lectures  at 
Harvard  by  preaching  on  "  The  Message  of  Christ  to  the 
Individual  Man."  The  lecture  was  published  the  following 
autumn  with  the  other  lectures  in  the  course,  under  the 
title,  The  Message  of  Christ  to  Manhood. 

The  Easter  number  of  the  New  York  World  contained  a 
symposium  on  The  Religious  Outlook  of  the  Twentieth 
Century,  by  Bishop  Westcott,  Bishop  Huntington,  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  Dr.  Allen,  and  others.  Though  Dr.  Allen  found 
the  close  of  the  century  marked  by  heroic  sacrifice  of 
money  and  men  to  spread  the  faith  in  Christ,  and  though 
he  found  Biblical  and  historical  criticism  purifying  Chris- 
tianity of  false  accretions  and  popular  misinterpretations, 
he  also  found  the  principle  of  solidarity  pushed  to  a 
dangerous  extreme,  "weakening  the  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  and  limiting  individual  freedom.  The 
ideas  of  God  and  immortality  have  thus  been  temporarily 
weakened  as  motives  of  life."  Then  touching  the  subject 
13 


i78  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

of  Church  unity  he  went  on:  "The  divisions  of  Christen- 
dom engender  great  evils,  but  they  also  prevent  the 
domination  of  the  State  by  the  Church,  and  for  this  end 
are  not  too  great  a  price  to  pay.  There  is  here  also  a 
certain  guarantee  for  individual  freedom.  .  .  .  Christian 
unity  based  upon  a  solidarity  of  numbers  and  of  power 
would  be  a  misfortune." 

The  Rev.  A.  E.  Whatham,  a  clergyman  of  the  Church 
of  England,  working  in  Quebec,  thinking  and  writing  of 
many  of  the  questions  dwelt  upon  in  Christian  Institutions, 
turned  to  Dr.  Allen  for  guidance  as  soon  as  he  had  read  the 
book.  He  was  typical  of  the  large  number  of  thoughtful 
persons  who  in  these  years  wrote  to  Dr.  Allen  for  such 
help.  Instantly  Dr.  Allen  pushed  aside  the  mass  of  ma- 
terial for  the  Brooks  biography  that  covered  his  desk  and 
wrote  his  careful  answers.  "The  doctrine  of  the  Kenosis," 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Whatham,  one  day  in  March,  "is  too  vast 
to  touch  upon.  I  do  not  feel  sure  that  the  present  contro- 
versy on  the  subject  will  lead  to  results  of  any  positive 
value.  It  is  not  with  me  a  starting-point  in  endeavouring 
to  determine  the  personality  of  Christ.  I  think  that  He 
was  growing  into  the  divine  from  the  human  point  of  view 
ever  more  and  more  —  into  its  omnipotence  and  omnis- 
cience as  well  as  into  its  moral  attributes.  But  I  assume 
that  Christ  knew  what  He  meant  to  do,  what  He  came 
into  this  world  for,  and  knew  it  all  when  He  began  to 
preach." 

In  April  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor:  "What  fools  our  con- 
gressmen are  making  of  themselves.  It  reminds  me  of 
Gambier  on  a  small  scale.  It  is  becoming  more  and  more 
evident  that  personal  government  will  ultimately  be  called 
for.     Congress  is  becoming  a  nuisance  and  an  injury  to  the 

country.     I  think  on  the  whole is  the  biggest  fool  of 

them  all.  He  has  his  eye  on  the  Presidency,  but  he  will 
never  get  it.  He  irritates  me  more  than  the  others.  Most 
of  them  are  turkey  gobblers,  strutting  for  public  admiration. 


THE  BIOGRAPHER'S  METHOD  179 

But  as  to  the  war,  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  must  and  ought 
to  come,  unless  Spain  gets  out  of  Cuba;  and  she  can  hardly 
do  that  with  dignity.  There  is  in  it  all  this  essence  of  an 
inevitable  conflict.  .  .  .  My  article  is  in  the  World  of 
April  3.  It  is  rather  disgusting  to  be  in  such  a  paper  with 
fine  company  on  one  side  and  ballet  dancers  on  the  other. 
The  good  and  wise  New  York  Nation  read  us  a  sharp 
lecture  on  the  subject." 

"Next  week,"  he  wrote,  at  the  end  of  May,  "  I  give  my 
last  lecture  in  the  School  for  the  year,  and  then  I  am  in  for 
another  hard  summer's  work  on  the  Brooks  Memoir.  Where 
I  shall  go  I  don't  know.  Probably  I  shall  stay  in  Cam- 
bridge and  work  through  July  and  August.  .  .  .  Jack  is 
now  drilling  every  day  in  one  of  the  College  companies. 
He  wears  a  cowboy  hat  and  white  gloves  and  really  looks 
medium  fierce." 

To  a  pupil  who  was  undertaking  a  biography  he  wrote 
words  of  counsel  which  defined  his  own  method:  "You  may 
be  tempted,  as  I  have  been,  to  try  to  say  everything  at 
once,  but  it  is  a  mistake.  Let  the  subject  grow,  as  it  will, 
with  a  deep  motive  and  purpose  in  view.  Instead  of  say- 
ing, I  will  show  what  a  man  is  and  can  do  who  has  such  and 
such  convictions,  it  is  better  to  let  the  man  appear  for 
himself,  making  only  such  allusions  as  are  necessary;  and 
then  when  the  man  has  appeared,  show  why  he  was  strong 
by  summing  it  all  up  with  reference  to  the  great  motive. 
And  if  you  can  avoid  it  —  which  is  difficult  —  don't  be 
anxious  to  show  what  he  didn't  believe.  That  will  come 
out  in  his  life.  It  is  all  like  painting  a  picture,  and  depends 
on  how  you  put  in  the  touches  of  the  brush.  You  want  to 
browse  over  some  things  till  you  see  their  meaning  and 
how  they  can  be  used  with  effect.  One  doesn't  always  see 
the  significance  of  an  event  or  statement  at  the  first  glimpse. 
One  wants  to  get  inside  the  life  of  a  man  and  study  it  from 
within,  and  then  act  as  interpreter.  The  ideal  estimate 
is  always  the  truest,  and  a  biographer  should  be  full  of 


180  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

enthusiasm.  But  excuse  all  this.  ...  I  have  been  here 
in  the  Adirondack^  trying  to  recuperate  after  a  good  deal 
of  hard  work." 

In  September  he  wrote  again  to  this  pupil:  "I  have  just 
returned  to  Cambridge.  The  prospect  for  the  School  is 
good.  Some  twenty  men  are  enrolled  for  entrance  in  the 
Junior  Class.  This  for  us  is  large."  This  period  from 
1896  to  1898  saw  changes  both  of  loss  and  gain  in  the 
School.  The  end  of  each  year  had  its  appeal  for  necessary 
money.  In  1897  Mr.  W.  H.  Lincoln  was  elected  a  trustee, 
and  in  1898  two  trustees  died,  Judge  Bennett  and  Mr.  Fay. 
Mrs.  Gray  this  year  gave  the  Deanery  in  memory  of  Dean 
Gray,  and  Mr.  Paine  became  president  of  the  board.  The 
vacancies  were  filled  in  1899  by  the  election  of  Mr.  Horace 
E.  Scudder  and  Mr.  W.  C.  Endicott. 

In  addition  to  his  School  work  Dr.  Allen  was  working 
hard  upon  the  Memoir.  One  September  afternoon  Mr. 
Brush  came  into  his  study  to  find  him  surrounded  with  all 
the  Brooks  note-books.  "I  have  just  found  an  illuminat- 
ing sentence  in  a  letter,"  said  Dr.  Allen,  "and  I  am  reading 
all  the  note-books  in  the  light  of  it."  November  10,  he 
wrote  to  his  son,  "There  is  no  news  here,  except  that  I  am 
awfully  lonely  most  of  the  time  these  days." 

Pupils,  past  and  present,  stayed  him  these  lonely,  driv- 
ing years.  "I  sometimes  think,"  wrote  a  man  just  gradu- 
ated, "that  I  am  the  only  one  my  preaching  is  saving  so 
far.  I  sit  down  to  write  a  vague  idea  about  some  truth 
taught  by  the  Incarnation.  And,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, when  that  sermon  is  finished  I  see  deeper  into  the 
wonderful  depth  of  the  Christ.  I  more  and  more  see  what 
you  told  me  is  in  the  message  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  — 
'endless  richness  and  variety.'"  For  such  response  the 
life  of  a  teacher  was  infinitely  worth  while.  In  his  note- 
book he  put  down  this  fall  the  saying  of  Jowett:  "Any  one 
who  labours  among  young  men  will  reap  his  reward  in  an 
affection  far  beyond  his  deserts." 


PERSONAL  REVELATION  181 

The  note-book  for  this  period  covers  chiefly  biographies, 
which  he  was  reading  to  test  his  own  methods.  A  few 
extracts  will  show  characteristics  of  his  methods  and 
thought: 

'"Nothing  can  bring  peace  but  the  triumph  of  principles.'  — 
Emerson.  This  is  untrue,  dangerous.  It  is  in  following  it  that 
Puritanism  becomes  a  danger  to  the  country.  The  English 
have  hardly  a  principle,  but  more  peace  than  we." 

"Pusey's  Life:  vol.  iv.  These  are  the  pages  containing 
remarks  I  may  wish  to  refer  to:  pp.  60,  89,  99,  102,  161,  172, 
207,  214,  218,  224,  231,  235,  257,  361." 

"Ventura  said,  'If  the  Church  keeps  not  pace  with  the 
world,  the  world  will  go  beyond  and  turn  around  and  teach  her.' 
This  is  illustrated  in  the  age  before  Hildebrand,  when  the  State 
first  rose,  and  then  turned  and  helped  up  the  Church." 

But  the  most  distinct  revelation  of  these  years  is  after 
all  in  Christian  Institutions.  There  he  had  spoken  of  "the 
fellowship  of  human  souls  bound  together  by  the  tie  of  love, 
which  is  both  human  and  divine."  Again  he  must  have 
thought  of  himself  as  he  wrote,  "In  this  emergency  of  the 
soul  there  was  no  man  that  could  help  him."  "Personal 
conviction,"  he  said  on  another  page,  "which  is  only  another 
name  for  private  judgment,  does  not  mean  that  a  man  picks 
and  chooses  what  he  likes,  but  that  he  allows  the  stream 
of  human  experience  to  flow  through  his  soul  and  produce 
its  legitimate  result.  ...  If  a  man  would  know  what  he 
believes,  he  must  know  what  the  Church  has  believed  in 
every  age  and  the  ground  on  which  its  belief  has  rested." 
Forced  to  suffer  as  never  before,  he  felt  as  few  have  felt 
the  disgraces  of  history.  It  was  with  profound  meaning 
that  he  would  introduce  the  reference  to  some  shabby 
ecclesiasticism  with  the  words,  "It  is  still  painful  to  recall." 
And  out  of  the  depths  he  had  looked  to  the  hills  whence 
his  help  had  come;  for  he  spoke  of  "the  vision  by  which 


182  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS 

each  soul  may  see  Christ  for  himself  through  direct  and 
immediate  communion  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  that  Spirit 
whose  testimony  within  the  soul  is  the  supreme  authority 
and  ground  of  certitude,  who  takes  of  the  things  of  Christ 
and  reveals  them  to  men  with  fresh  power  and  new  con- 
viction." These  expressions  of  his  inner  life  he  could  not 
have  uttered  directly.  In  the  pages  of  a  book  his  reserve 
found  a  confessional. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    LIFE    OF    PHILLIPS    BROOKS 

1899-I9OI 

I  AM  now  working  steadily  at  the  Memoir,"  Dr.  Allen 
wrote  to  his  brother,  January  2,  1899.  "It  will  be 
in  two  large  octavo  volumes  of  some  600  pages  each.  The 
first  volume  is  considerably  more  than  done,  i.e.,  will 
have  to  be  cut  down.  I  am  now  some  way  in  the 
second." 

On  February  24  he  wrote  again  to  his  brother:  "What  a 
time  they  are  having  in  England  over  the  Ritualists!  It 
has  come  at  last,  and  I  think  it  means  they  must  go.  We 
have  waited  a  long  time  for  it,  these  dreary  years,  and  it 
strengthens  my  faith  in  a  divine  order.  That  Romanism 
should  be  at  liberty  to  remake  the  English  Church  was 
too  much.  I  don't  believe  the  movement  will  decline  in 
vehemence  till  it  has  accomplished  its  work.  Nor  do  I 
believe  there  is  much  danger  in  disestablishment.  I  attrib- 
ute the  movement  in  part  to  the  Memoirs  of  Manning  and 
of  Pusey,  and  to  the  Pope's  Encyclical  on  Anglican  Orders 
and  to  the  rise  of  the  national  spirit  since  Gladstone's 
failure  and  the  coming  in  of  the  Tories.  It  will  gradually 
affect  this  country,  because  we  take  our  cue  from  England. 
The  Roman  Catholic  reaction  at  last  is  over.     It  has  been 

a  mean  thing  ever  since  the  days  of  Dr.  at  Otis. 

Father  suffered  from  it.  .  .  .  As  to  Imperialism,  I  think 
we  must  make  up  our  minds  to  it.  It  will  be  costly  and 
give  us  no  end  of  anxiety  and  trouble.  It  is  going  to 
revolutionize  America,  so  that  it  will  never  again  be  quite 

183 


184  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

the  same  country  with  the  same  old  watchwords.  But 
there  may  be  compensations:  agitations  for  protective 
tariffs,  free  silver,  woman's  suffrage,  prohibition,  Irish  ques- 
tions, labour  and  capital,  sectional  antipathies  —  these 
may  lose  their  prominence;  which  will  be  a  gain.  Govern- 
ment is  an  artificial  thing,  and  a  country  needs  some  interest 
in  life,  apart  from  plodding  duties.  I  find  mine  in  reading 
The  Boston  Transcript,  and  pottering  about  little  improve- 
ments in  the  house.  The  American  Congress  may  find  it 
in  managing  the  Filipinos,  and  learn  to  leave  the  other 
issues  to  take  care  of  themselves." 

Miss  Alice  Smith,  from  her  invalid's  room  in  Mt.  Vernon 
street,  continued  to  give  him  help  for  the  Memoir.  And 
her  sister,  Miss  Paulina,  added  her  remembrance  of  the 
Bishop.  The  acquaintance  thus  begun  ripened  into  friend- 
ship, and  it  came  to  be  Dr.  Allen's  custom  to  spend  part 
of  each  Saturday  afternoon  at  this  pleasant  house,  talking 
of  Bishop  Brooks,  and  then  of  theology  in  general.  They 
came  to  speak  of  the  afternoons  as  seminars :  and  he  him- 
self named  the  event  Law's  Serious  Call. 

"The  Memoir  goes  on  steadily,"  he  wrote,  July  17;  "I 
have  just  revised  the  typewritten  copy  of  the  first  volume, 
and  it  is  ready  for  the  press,  but  I  have  found  weak  spots 
in  it,  which  I  have  not  time  to  correct.  I  have  told  the 
story  as  best  I  could.  The  public  will  feel  that  they  have 
not  quite  got  the  man,  that  there  is  some  unexplained 
element  in  his  personality  and  will  not  accept  my  expla- 
nations. But  it  is  better  not  to  try  to  explain,  and  some- 
times I  wish  I  had  not  attempted  it  at  all." 

The  temptation  to  turn  aside  continued.  The  most 
beguiling  was  the  urging  of  Mr.  Scudder  and  Mr.  Perry  to 
review  Dr.  Munger's  Bushnell,  in  The  Atlantic,  making  it 
an  excuse  for  another  chapter  in  his  New  England  Theology. 
But  he  had  strength  to  say  No.  His  pupils  he  did  not 
resist.  They  came  to  see  him,  and  he  talked  Brooks  with 
them,  drawing  out  their  immaturity  to  find  how  Brooks 


SUMMER  WORK  185 

had  won  them.  An  old  pupil  wrote  that  he  was  reading 
Continuity  for  the  tenth  time.  Another  pupil  was  invited 
to  spend  a  Sunday  with  him  at  Sharon  with  friends  they 
had  in  common.  Dr.  Allen  had  gone  to  the  early  service 
at  Christ  Church,  expecting  to  join  his  friends  in  Sharon 
in  time  for  a  service  in  the  village  church.  He  did  not 
come  till  afternoon,  explaining  that,  missing  his  train,  he 
had  gone  to  a  Baptist  church  in  Boston.  ''Very  strange, 
these  Baptists,"  he  said;  "the  minister  illustrated  his  text 
by  hollyhocks.  He  had  planted  two  beds,  single  and 
double.  The  seed  of  the  double  blew  over  into  the  bed  of 
the  single,  and  next  season  they  all  came  up  double;  so  that 
the  single  hollyhock  might  say,  '  It  is  no  longer  I  that 
live,  but  the  double  hollyhock  liveth  in  me.'"  It  was 
like  him  to  be  adding  to  his  knowledge  of  human 
varieties. 

His  younger  son  having  been  graduated  from  Harvard, 
and  being  out  in  the  world,  Dr.  Allen  was  now  quite  alone. 
In  August,  he  wrote:  "I  have  invited  Mr.  Winthrop  Scud- 
der,  a  nephew  of  Mr.  Horace  Scudder,  to  spend  the  coming 
year  at  2,  Phillips  Place.  I  think  I  shall  find  it  an  agreeable 
arrangement.  I  want  some  one  with  me  in  the  house.  .  .  . 
I  go  up  every  night  to  Arlington  Heights,  get  my  dinner 
there,  go  to  bed  about  8.30;  get  up  at  6  and  break- 
fast at  6.30,  getting  down  to  Cambridge  about  7.15.  I 
think  I  make  better  progress  in  consequence  on  the 
book." 

He  wrote  in  September  to  Mr.  Taylor,  who  was  to  make 
him  a  visit  for  a  day,  urging  him  not  to  come  until  after- 
noon that  the  morning  might  be  free  for  the  book.  It 
shows  how  strictly  he  gave  himself  to  his  task,  that  even 
his  closest  friend  was  shut  out.  "You  will  excuse  me  I 
know,"  he  said.  "The  first  volume  goes  to  press  this  week, 
and  a  large  part  of  the  second  volume  remains  yet  to  be 
written." 

In  December  he  had  still  four  chapters  to  do.    An  old 


186  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

pupil  had  heard  that  he  meant  to  pass  over  Brooks's  epis- 
copate lightly,  and  appealed  for  space,  because  a  great 
bishop  satisfied  the  imagination.  "As  to  bishops,"  Dr. 
Allen  wrote  him,  this  month,  "you  and  I  understand  it 
perfectly.  They  are  the  supernatural  element  in  the  P. 
E.  Church,  just  as  revivals  and  conversions  are  among  the 
sects.  Ours  would  be  a  tame  colourless  Church  without 
them,  with  nothing  to  strike  the  popular  imagination.  As 
it  is,  they  canonize  the  commonplace,  but  they  may  do 
more  —  canonize  good  common  sense.  As  angels  they 
should  not  soar  high,  for  we  want  them  in  reach  of  the 
people,  with  a  Christianity  that  can  be  understood.  And 
as  a  rule  they  are  good  men.  They  must  be  if  they  would 
give  the  supernatural  impression.  The  people  cannot 
long  be  deceived  on  that  point.  and were  fail- 
ures, contradicting  the  first  principles  of  Episcopacy, 
'blameless  ...  of  good  behaviour  .  .  .  patient,  not  a 
brawler'  (i  Tim.  iii).  Now  and  then  a  mistake  is  made  and 
a  novice  gets  into  the  office,  with  a  fearful  danger  —  'being 
rifted  up  with  pride,  he  fall  into  condemnation  of  the  devil.' 
What  the  bishop  must  have  is  a  good  heart,  and  my  experi- 
ence is  that  this  gradually  enlarges  the  mind,  or  becomes 
a  substitute  for  mental  activity  and  insight.  Now  and 
then  we  have  that  rarest  of  sights  —  the  great  man  in  the 
office  —  that  was  Brooks."  Having  written  all  this,  he 
did  not  send  the  letter.  He  was  apt  to  write  long  letters: 
and  then  for  some  reason  fail  to  send  them.  Perhaps  he 
thought  this  one  would  lessen  the  respect  of  his  pupil  for 
his  particular  bishop. 

December  29  was  the  ninetieth  birthday  of  Professor 
Park,  of  Andover;  and  Dr.  Allen  was  invited  to  join  with 
his  other  friends  in  writing  to  him  on  that  day.  In  speak- 
ing of  his  debt  to  Dr.  Park,  he  said:  "It  is  good  for  a  young 
man  to  come  reverently  and  in  a  devout  and  docile  spirit 
to  learn  from  a  teacher  who  commands  his  respect  and 
admiration,  not  to  criticize  but  to  receive  in  glad  submis- 


CHARACTER  OF  BROOKS  187 

sion.  A  great  part  of  our  best  training  comes  through 
admiration  and  affection  for  the  teacher.  Such  a  teacher 
is  very  rare,  coming  but  once  in  an  age,  and  such  a  teacher 
you  were  to  us." 

The  end  of  1899  found  the  first  volume  of  the  Memoir  in 
plates,  and  the  second  volume  was  nearly  done.  But  there 
had  been  delays  with  the  publishers.  There  were  also  the 
inevitable  discussions  with  members  of  the  family  over 
omissions  of  personal  matters,  and  though  the  family  were 
considerate  and  open  to  conviction,  the  pleas  for  a  full 
story  consumed  time.  One  gets  a  vision  of  the  enormous 
expenditure  of  heart  and  mind  which  Dr.  Allen  put  into 
this  biography. 

Dr.  Allen  felt  keenly  the  difficulty  of  his  work.  "Brooks 
is  a  hard  character  to  treat,"  he  wrote  this  winter  to  Bishop 
Lawrence,  "because  of  that  double  personality."  When 
Brooks  dealt  hard  blows  against  people,  Dr.  Allen  under- 
stood. But  Brooks's  boisterous  merriment  over  his  saints 
shocked  his  biographer.  The  men  were  quite  different  in 
this  respect;  but  the  real  reason  for  the  jocularity  Dr. 
Allen  did  not  understand,  because  he  had  never  been  the 
shepherd  of  a  great  flock.  Had  he  received  day  by  day 
the  confessed  troubles  of  many  souls,  had  he  given  his 
sympathy  till  the  troubles  became  his  own,  he  would  have 
known  that  he  would  have  to  rattle  on  with  badinage  in 
familiar  intercourse  even  to  the  threshold  of  the  church, 
else  his  own  heart  would  break.  The  people  to  whom  men 
trust  their  souls,  as  Lincoln,  must  have  a  safety  valve. 
Dr.  Allen  was  a  shepherd  of  souls,  but  the  multitude  did 
not  look  to  him  for  guidance.  And  the  Puritan  strain, 
faint  as  it  was,  marked  him.  It  amused  him  that  Mrs. 
Brooks  said  to  her  son,  "Phillips,  not  so  much  noise: 
remember,  it  is  Sunday."  In  his  heart  his  biographer 
wished  to  say  it  too.  It  was  an  "unexplained  element "  in 
his  hero:  frivolity  and  the  hush  of  God  came,  he  thought, 
too  close. 


188  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

During  the  fall  of  1899  Dr.  Allen  had  been  excused  from 
lecturing  to  his  classes,  while  he  gave  himself  altogether  to 
the  effort  to  finish  the  Life  in  the  hope  that  it  might  be  out 
for  Christmas.  But  it  was  in  vain.  Another  year  of  con- 
tinuous work  was  before  him,  before  the  book  could  be 
issued.  So,  in  January,  1900,  he  began  his  work  in  the 
School  again.  "It  seemed  natural,  easy,  and  delightful," 
he  wrote  in  his  diary. 

He  was  on  the  side  of  the  German  Emperor  against  the 
Pope  in  the  discussion  on  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century.  He  held  that  it  had  begun.  "  The  true  analogy," 
he  wrote,  "is  the  life  of  a  man,  which  begins  with  zero." 
The  turning  of  the  century  appealed  to  his  imagination, 
and  he  wrote  of  it  again  and  again  in  his  letters  this 
year. 

To  the  outsider  Dr.  Allen's  life  seemed  uneventful.  To 
those  who  knew  him  intimately  it  seemed  full  of  action. 
Every  moment  now  had  to  be  planned  for;  and  he  wrote 
his  son  that  he  had  to  be  in  training  as  if  he  were  an  athlete, 
so  that  he  could  do  the  greatest  amount  of  work  in  a  given 
time.  Moreover  the  opportunity  to  touch  the  world  at 
different  points  seemed  unlimited.  On  a  single  morning 
(January  16)  the  post  brought  him  five  invitations:  to 
make  the  chief  address  at  the  150th  anniversary  of  the 
banishment  of  Edwards  from  Northampton;  to  write  an 
article  on  Martineau  for  The  Atlantic;  to  dine  with  a 
small  group  of  distinguished  men  in  Boston;  to  preach  in 
Hartford;  to  share  in  the  dedication  of  Brooks  House  at 
Harvard.  And  yet  the  neighbours  pitied  him,  because  he 
seemed  to  them  a  secluded  scholar,  with  no  chance  to  face 
the  issues  of  everyday  life.  Not  the  busiest  of  them  had 
his  chance  to  speak  either  directly  or  through  the  printed 
page  to  his  time.  Even  The  Continuity,  out  for  sixteen 
years,  had  sold  108  copies  during  the  last  half  year.  "I 
wonder,"  he  said,  "who  buys  it."  In  June  he  read  his 
paper  at  Northampton  on  The  Place  of  Edwards  in  History, 


THE  INFALLIBLE  CHRIST  189 

which  was  published  with  the  other  papers  of  the  day  in  a 
volume  entitled  Jonathan  Edwards:  a  Retrospect. 

In  spite  of  this  larger  opportunity,  it  was  the  individual 
of  whom  he  was  thinking.  The  wheels  would  stop,  while 
he  wrote  a  letter  to  a  perplexed  questioner,  pupil  or  stranger. 
"My  criticism,"  he  wrote  to  a  man  who  had  put  to  him  his 
views  of  Christ,  "springs  from  an  innate  deep  unwillingness 
to  allow  for  a  moment  that  Christ  changed  His  mind  about 
His  mission  to  the  world.  I  assume  that  He  knew  what  He 
came  for,  and  worked  and  taught  and  lived  directly  to  this 
end.  I  prefer  to  assume  that  His  disciples  did  not  under- 
stand Him  always,  and  so  represented  Him  as  saying  things 
which  do  not  do  Him  full  justice,  or  make  Him  seem  con- 
tradictory in  His  utterances.  In  other  words,  between  an 
infallible  Christ  and  an  infallible  book,  I  always  choose  the 
former." 

One  of  the  people  who  gave  him  most  assistance  this  last 
year  of  the  preparation  for  the  Memoir  was  the  Rev. 
Reuben  Kidner,  who  had  been  associated  with  Phillips 
Brooks  in  Trinity  Church.  For  love  of  both  men  Mr. 
Kidner  sought  out  difficult  information  which  Dr.  Allen 
could  not  pause  to  find.  He  made  the  index  also.  "  Thank 
you,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Kidner  in  February,  "for  allowing 

me  to  read  Dr. 's  letter.     He  is  right  in  speaking  of  the 

collapse  of  Unitarianism  when  Brooks  came  to  Boston. 
But  others  speak  of  the  collapse  of  that  phase  of  Orthodox 

Puritanism  which  Dr.  represents.     He  is  profoundly 

right  in  maintaining  that  the  doctrine  of  forgiveness  of 
Christ  is  of  the  inmost  essence  of  the  Gospel  and  lies  also  at 
the  root  of  Christian  civilization.  Brooks  accepted  this  as 
profoundly  true;  but  he  was  an  Anglican,  not  a  Puritan. 
He  maintained  that  all  mankind  has  been  redeemed.  From 
the  Anglican  point  of  view,  Orthodox  Puritanism  and 
Roman  Catholicism  share  in  common  the  stupendous 
error  of  denying  virtually  the  Atonement  of  Christ,  because 
denying  the  actuality  of  its  effect  —  a  redeemed  humanity. 


i9o  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

They  agree  that  the  world  in  which  we  live  is  still  a  lost 
and  ruined  world.  What  the  world  wanted  in  Brooks's 
day  was  the  reality,  and  he  brought  it.  And  how  the 
world  did  listen  to  him!  He  had  but  one  sermon,  as  he 
said:  'You  are  saved  of  God  by  nature  and  by  grace.  Rise 
up  and  claim  your  heritage  with  all  its  possibilities.  Stand 
up  before  God,  and  acknowledge  yourselves  children  of 
the   Eternal   Father."' 

Of  all  helpers,  however,  Bishop  Lawrence  proved  the 
most  valuable.  To  no  one  did  he  write  so  freely  about  the 
Life;  and  the  hardest  problems,  especially  about  parts  to  be 
omitted,  were  submitted  to  him.  "When  the  book  is  fin- 
ished," Dr.  Allen  said  to  the  Bishop,  "I  want  to  have  a 
talk  with  you  and  to  tell  you  many  things  which  will  make 
the  story  clearer." 

Dr.  Allen  remained  in  Cambridge  all  summer,  hoping  to 
finish  the  work  by  September.  Then  the  printers  mislaid 
a  large  quantity  of  the  manuscript,  and  could  not  find  it 
for  a  month.  Even  so,  he  hoped  to  be  done  with  the  work 
when  school  opened.  But  it  was  not  till  November  21, 
1900,  that  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  "On  this  day  I  wrote  the 
words  'The  End'  to  the  last  page  of  MS.  for  the  Life  of 
Phillips  Brooks.  It  is  three  years  and  two  months  since 
I  sat  down  in  the  parlour  at  Harry's  table  and  began  the 
first  chapter.  But  I  was  alone  and  no  one  with  me  as  I 
wrote  the  end."  December  15,  he  wrote:  "Mr.  Coolidge 
of  the  Riverside  Press  called  at  8  a.m.  and  left  the  first 
bound  copy  of  the  Life  of  Phillips  Brooks."  The  biogra- 
phy was  out  for  the  Christmas  of  1900. 

"The  book  will  sell,  I  think,  "  he  wrote  to  his  son,  in  De- 
cember, "but  they  hold  it  at  a  high  price.  The  first  edition 
of  5000  copies  is  already  taken,  although  the  book  is  not 
yet  on  the  shelves  of  the  book-shops.  There  is  a  large 
paper  edition  in  five  volumes.  That  is  to  be  given  to  me 
by  Mr.  Robert  Treat  Paine,  finely  bound.  He  is  also 
sending  a  copy  to  Her  Majesty,  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain 


CRITICISM  OF  BROOKS'S  BIOGRAPHY     191 

and  Empress  of  India.  Well,  well!  .  .  .  Now  that  I  am 
through  I  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  myself.  It  is  hard 
to  catch  at  anything.  They  say  there  is  some  danger  of 
relapse  after  such  long  tension.  If  there  is,  I  don't  know 
what  can  be  done  to  prevent  it." 

To  Mr.  Learoyd  he  wrote  three  days  later:  "The  book 
is  done,  the  struggle  is  over.  I  have  not  done  just  what  I 
meant  to  do.  But  it  was  impossible  to  do  it,  when  I  was 
locked  up  in  type  as  fast  as  I  proceeded.  However,  it  is 
done  after  a  fashion,  and  that  is  something.  It  will  be 
out  next  week." 

The  evening  of  December  10  found  Dr.  Allen  with  Dr. 
Munger  and  Mr.  Scudder  in  Concord  speaking  on  Dr. 
Mulford.  It  was  the  fifteenth  anniversary  of  his  death. 
He  concluded  his  speech  with  a  eulogy  on  the  missionary. 
"One  good  thing  about  the  German  Emperor,"  he  said, 
"is  that  he  believes  in  God  and  Germany  and  missions. 
He  will  put  the  whole  state  at  the  defense  of  one  solitary 
missionary.  Germany  has  much  to  teach  us.  Do  you 
suppose  that  the  Emperor  would  have  let  the  Pope  say 
that  German  orders  were  invalid?" 

Immediately,  with  the  new  year  of  1901,  letters  of  grati- 
tude for  the  Life  of  Brooks  began  to  come  to  Phillips 
Place.  They  gave  Dr.  Allen  intense  pleasure.  The  Cleri- 
cus  Club  gave  a  dinner  to  him  at  the  Union  Club,  January 
7,  and  Bishop  Brooks's  more  intimate  friends  made  warm- 
hearted speeches  of  thanks,  to  which  the  guest  of  honour 
made  response  at  the  end.  Dr.  Huntington's  contribution 
was  a  poem.  "It  was  like  sitting  down  in  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven,"  the  Rev.  Augustine  Amory  said  afterwards. 

The  judgment  of  the  world  at  large  —  which  was 
promptly  given  in  both  England  and  America  in  papers 
and  reviews  —  was  first  of  all  on  the  great  length  of  the 
book.  The  English,  forgetting  the  four  ponderous  tomes 
of   Dr.    Pusey's   Life,    were   especially   contemptuous   of 


1 92  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

American  prolixity.  The  Scotch  said  that, trying  to  honour 
his  hero,  the  author  had  buried  him  under  a  pyramid. 
Many,  too,  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  felt  the  invariable 
atmosphere  of  praise.  "On  every  page,"  said  an  Ameri- 
can review,  "are  heard  the  trumpets  and  shawms." 
This,  said  some  in  disgust,  is  not  the  life  of  a  man,  but 
of  a  god.  "Brooks,"  said  a  fiery  New  York  rector,  "if  he 
were  alive,  would  put  the  book  in  the  fire." 

The  book  is  open  fairly  to  both  criticisms:  it  is  long;  it 
is  unbounded  appreciation,  without  a  line  of  criticism. 
The  author  knew  both  defects,  when  he  wrote  the  book. 
But  he  was  writing  under  compulsion  in  more  ways  than 
one.  "What  you  say  about  him,"  he  said  to  Dr.  Gordon, 
"is  profoundly  true:  we  suppress  the  critical  tendency 
when  we  think  of  him.  I  found  I  must  do  it,  in  order  to 
get  my  freedom,  trusting  to  a  certain  instinct  to  guide  me, 
as  to  what  should  be  inserted  or  rejected." 

The  severest  judges  of  books  among  American  journals, 
The  Nation  and  The  Atlantic,  had  only  unqualified  appre- 
ciation in  their  long  reviews.  And  the  dictum  of  Dr. 
Abbott  in  The  Outlook  —  "The  book  of  a  genius  by  a 
genius"  —  made  an  impression.  But  the  busy  multitude 
fretted  itself  over  the  1600  full  pages,  and  was  scornful.  It 
is  worth  while,  however,  to  cite  a  few  of  the  personal  letters 
to  see  what  it  did  for  capable  and  patient  critics  at  the 
time. 

"It  is  inconceivable,"  said  Dr.  Donald,  of  Trinity,  "that 
it  could  have  been  done  so  well.  .  .  .  Very  likely  some 
folk  may  fault  you  for  giving  so  copious  extracts  from  the 
Note-Books,  but  in  my  judgment  you  have  thereby  shown 
your  rare  competence  to  write  the  Life.  .  .  .  The  Note- 
Books  and  the  chapter  on  his  theology  together  would 
alone  make  the  Life  notable.  .  .  .  But  I  should  not  be 
quite  frank  did  I  not  regret  a  defect  in  the  book.  It  would 
have  been  better  had  something  been  said  of  B's  limita- 
tions.    He  had  them.    He  was  contemptuous  of  mediocrity, 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  193 

of  dignitaries,  and  of  ritual  beauty.  He  had  a  splendidly 
violent  temper,  and  he  was  not  sympathetic  with  certain 
valuable  phases  of  the  work  scientific  men  are  doing.  If 
these  had  been  given  a  place,  his  innumerable  shining  gifts 
and  achievements  and  virtues  would  look  both  more  human 
and  more  real." 

That  is  a  good  letter.  But  Dr.  Allen  was  under  the 
spell  of  Brooks,  and  he  wrote  as  he  had  to  write.  A  keen 
pupil,  comforting  him,  reminded  him  that  it  is  only  the 
appreciative  books  that  live:  the  contemporary  reviewers 
of  Boswell  would  be  ridiculous  reading  now,  he  said,  if  they 
could  be  got  out  from  under  the  dust  of  years.  This  man 
knew  that  Dr.  Allen  had  deliberately  chosen  Boswell  as 
his  model. 

Distinctly  literary  judges  gave  their  verdict.  "I  thank 
you,"  wrote  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  "for  a  life  picture  which 
must,  I  think,  rank  with  the  few  competent  histories  of  a 
great  man.  .  .  .  Your  book  ought  to  be  in  a  number  of 
handy  octavos.     It  will  live." 

It  had  been  one  of  Dr.  Allen's  dreams  that  sometime  the 
book  might  be  printed  in  eight  or  ten  little  volumes  —  in 
this  respect,  too,  like  Boswell's  Johnson  —  so  that  a  theo- 
logical student,  going  on  a  journey,  might  tuck  a  volume 
in  his  pocket  —  any  volume  at  random  —  and  find  food 
for  thought  of  the  ministry  that  should  be  his  at  last.  At 
the  Commencement  dinner  in  June,  Dr.  Allen  explained 
that  he  had  not  written  the  book  for  the  general  public,  it 
was  for  theological  students.  Dr.  Mitchell's  suggestion, 
therefore,  touched  a  familiar  and  cherished  hope. 

Mrs.  Deland  gave  her  estimate.  "It  is  a  great  biogra- 
phy," she  wrote,  "a  noble  book,  a  wonderful  piece  of  work! 
Little  by  little,  with  one  powerful  stroke  after  another,  you 
have  drawn  on  this  great  canvas  the  living  man  —  more ! 
the  living  soul!  One  thing  I  question:  was  it  absolutely 
impossible  to  suggest  that  dreadful  and  heart-breaking  ex- 
perience with  Mr. ?    If  you  remember,  that  was  an 

14 


i94  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

awful  winter;  his  sermons,  especially  in  the  autumn,  stand 
out  in  my  memory  with  the  cruel  distinctiveness  of  suffer- 
ing. It  seemed  to  me  his  head  whitened,  and  his  shoulders 
bent  that  winter.  No  doubt  you  are  right,  and  it  could 
not  have  been  spoken  of  without  too  much  pain  to  others; 
yet  it  certainly  was  one  of  the  critical  times  in  his  life." 

The  letters  for  which  Dr.  Allen  cared  most  came  from 
his  pupils.  For  had  he  not  written  for  them  most  of  all? 
"The  increasing  greatness  of  your  book,"  said  one,  ''lies 
in  your  love  for  your  unknown  reader,  that  you  have  taken 
such  infinite  pains  to  tell  him  concretely  and  exactly  how 
noble  a  life  man  can  live.  It  is  like  that  love  of  Brooks 
for  his  congregation  of  which  you  speak.  It  is  what  saves 
us  all.     It  is  Justification  by  Faith,  isn't  it?  " 

These  seem  to  have  been  the  words  which  he  most  wished 
to  hear,  for  he  replied:  "No  other  letter  gave  me  such 
pleasure  as  those  two  you  wrote  me  on  my  Life  of  Brooks. 
They  were  hardly  letters  to  be  acknowledged  in  any  formal 
way,  and  even  now  I  cannot  tell  you  the  deep  satisfaction 
and  inward  delight  they  gave  me.  Oh!  why  is  it  that  we 
cannot  speak  out  and  say  what  we  feel?  Well!  it  is  this 
New  England  reserve  which  we  inherit.  Brooks  got  rid 
of  it  in  the  pulpit,  but  never  outside  the  pulpit.  And  so  it 
is  such  a  pleasure  to  me  when  it  is  broken  to  say  to  you, 
that  there  never  was  any  one  here  in  the  School  to  whom 
my  heart  went  out  as  it  did  to  you,  in  those  well-remem- 
bered days." 

He  wrote  to  his  son  in  May:  "Last  week  I  engaged  my 
passage  on  the  Ivernia,  for  July  6,  to  be  gone  a  year  and 
three  months.  Then  —  this  Sunday  morning  —  there 
came  a  letter  from  President  Hadley,  saying  that  Yale 
University  proposed  to  confer  on  me  the  degree  of 
D.D.  at  the  200th  anniversary  of  the  college,  which  is 
to  be  the  greatest  occasion  in  its  history,  the  2  2d  of 
October.  So  there  I  am.  To  go  away  to  Europe  looks 
like  underestimating  the  honour.    I  hold  the  degree  from 


A  SUMMER  IN  CANADA  195 

Harvard,  and  to  hold  it  also  from  Yale  would  please  me, 
for  it  would  show  that  I  had  done  what  I  had  always  tried 
to  do  —  meet  the  conservative  and  the  progressive  attitude. 
Nothing  must  be  said  about  this,  but  you  can  tell  me  what 
you  think."  Four  days  later  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Hadley  that 
he  would  accept  the  degree. 

To  Miss  Brace  he  wrote  in  June:  "I  have  challenged  the 
great  world  with  a  big  book  devoted  to  religion,  when  it  is 
accustomed  to  small  books,  and  prefers  that  even  these 
should  be  introduced  with  a  meek  apology,  when  they 
relate  to  the  religious  life.  I  have  also  taken  it  for  granted 
that  a  man  in  his  simple  manhood  is  more  important  than 
a  movement  or  a  school  of  thought.  The  movement,  like 
the '  Evangelical '  or  the  'Oxford,'  may  pass  and  be  forgotten, 
but  the  man  remains  a  permanent  interest  and  influence, 
if  he  is  really  great." 

At  the  Commencement  of  the  School,  June  17,  Dr.  Allen 
had  a  strange  sense  of  loneliness  in  the  thought  that  he 
should  not  be  part  of  its  life  for  more  than  a  year.  The 
trustees  arranged  that  his  work  should  be  taken  by  J.  W. 
Suter  and  H.  B.  Washburn,1  two  of  his  former  pupils.  He 
put  away  his  more  personal  belongings,  and  turned  his 
house  over  to  Mr.  Winthrop  Scudder. 

In  the  blazing  heat  of  a  day  in  mid- July,  he  fled  to  North 
Hatley,  in  Canada,  a  place  as  he  said  to  Mr.  Taylor,  suited 
to  his  genteel  impecuniosity.  The  place  reminded  him  of 
Windermere,  with  its  lake,  its  hills,  and  its  rain.  There 
were  many  visitors  from  the  south,  but  he  struck  a  Cana- 
dian vein  when  he  first  arrived.  "I  found  it  difficult,"  he 
said,  "to  get  on  with  them,  for  we  seemed  to  have  nothing 
in  common  until  I  resorted  to  asking  all  conceivable  ques- 
tions about  their  country.  Then  I  became  interested.  I 
could  now  deliver  a  lecture  on  French  Canada.  I  have 
done  a  large  amount  of  reading." 

1Mr.  Washburn  was  elected  Dr.  Allen's  successor  in  the  Chair  of 
Church  History  in  August,  1908. 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

"I  had  intended  leaving  here  long  before  this,"  he 
wrote,  in  August,  "but  an  interesting  family  has  turned 
up  —  the  Brintons  from  Philadelphia.  Dr.  Brinton  is 
professor  of  anatomy  and  surgery.  He  refuses  to  read,  so 
now  for  a  week  we  have  sat  and  talked  all  day  on  the 
piazza,  and  the  stream  of  talk  is  far  from  exhausted.  If 
it  gives  out,  I  shall  leave  at  once.  He  is  curious  about 
many  points  in  theology,  and  I  have  my  reprisals  in 
drawing  him  out  on  medicine  and  surgery.  I  don't  know 
which  displays  the  more  deplorable  ignorance." 

A  month  later,  he  reported  a  journey  up  the  Saguenay. 
"For  two  hours,"  he  wrote,  "the  panorama  went  on;  then 
came  sunset,  and  the  sun  looked  at  us  through  the  gorge 
in  the  mountains  with  an  indescribable  splendour,  and,  as 
it  set,  it  lit  up  the  dark  mountains  and  the  surface  of  the 
river  with  such  exquisite  combinations  of  colour  never  seen 
before,  that  we  were  held  entranced  in  the  hour  before  the 
vision  faded.  But  just  to  think  of  that  wonderful  spectacle 
taking  place  there  every  day  at  sunset  with  no  one  to 
witness  it;  for  it  was  an  exceptional  thing,  owing  to  the 
tide,  that  we  encountered  it.  But  there  it  is,  a  revelation 
it  seemed  to  me,  of  the  glory  of  heaven  itself,  or  what  one 
pictures  heaven  might  be.  And  it  followed  us  so  long,  as 
if  it  were  anxious  to  stamp  the  picture  so  that  it  should 
never  fade  from  memory.  Then  the  night  began  to  come 
on,  as  we  passed  the  two  great  mountains,  two  thousand 
feet  high  from  the  level  of  the  river  and  two  thousand  feet 
below.  They  have  called  them  Trinity  and  Eternity. 
They  rise  straight  up,  solid  masses  of  granite.  As  we 
passed  them  in  the  rapid  current,  no  one  spoke:  they 
seemed  to  command  silence  and  awe  as  the  only  possible 
tribute.  After  that  we  went  on  for  two  hours  more  till 
we  came  to  the  mouth  of  the  solemn  river  where  it  enters 
the  St.  Lawrence.  Ah  well,  it  was  worth  coming  to  Canada 
for.  I  wonder  if  all  this  sounds  like  an  effort  of  fine 
writing." 


THE  YALE  DEGREE  197 

Reaching  home,  Dr.  Allen  wrote:  " Percy  Browne  lies  at 
the  point  of  death.  I  went  to  the  house  in  Roxbury  this 
morning,  and  said  the  Commendatory  Prayer,  as  he  lay 
unconscious.  He  may  possibly  live  through  the  day. 
Mrs.  Browne  wants  me  to  take  charge  of  arrangements, 
so  I  remain  here  till  after  the  funeral." 

Immediately,  then,  he  went  to  Glen  Loch,  to  be  for  three 
weeks  with  his  brother.  "Last  Sunday,"  he  wrote,  October 
16,  "I  preached  for  the  first  time  in  more  than  a  year. 
Now  the  news  has  just  come  that  the  General  Convention 
has  rejected  the  proposed  Canon  on  Divorce,  for  which  I 
am  thankful  and  take  courage.  It  would  have  hurt  the 
Church  and  society  as  well,  and  the  highest  interests  of 
religion  and  morality  would  have  been  alike  imperilled. 
The  position  is  a  difficult  one,  but  the  proposed  canon  was 
not  the  right  way  out." 

In  October,  he  received  his  degree  from  Yale.  As  he 
was  honoured  on  Harvard's  greatest  day,  so  the  honour 
from  Yale  came  on  its  highest  festival.  He  was  frankly 
pleased.  "I  sail  next  Tuesday,  October  29,"  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Learoyd,  "and  go  direct  to  Paris.  Think  of  me  then, 
my  dear  friend,  for  a  moment,  for  I  shall  be  grateful  for  the 
remembrance.  Our  ranks  are  growing  smaller.  May  God 
bless  and  protect  us  all." 


CHAPTER  XV 

ROME 

1901  - 1902 

THE  year  abroad  became  practically  a  year  in  Rome. 
As  he  saw  the  history  of  the  centuries  in  Rome, 
Dr.  Allen  felt  that  all  his  life  had  been  a  preparation 
for  comprehending  its  meaning. 

On  the  ship  he  set  himself  to  review  Scudder's  Life  of 
Lowell  for  The  Atlantic.  "Lowell  to  me,"  he  said,  "is  not 
interesting  and  never  was.  There  is  a  crudeness  about 
him,  affectation,  desire  for  smartness,  and  some  vanity. 
These  things  waited  on  his  youth  and  never  quite  deserted 
him.  The  great  art  in  writing  is  to  say  things  in  the  very 
simplest  way  possible  and  trust  to  what  you  have  to  say 
to    make    an    impression." 

During  the  voyage,  too,  the  Yale  Commemoration  was 
running  in  his  mind.  He  spoke  of  interesting  talks  with 
Bishop  Potter,  who  clung  to  him  all  through  the  occasion. 
He  was  pleased  and  grateful,  ingeniously  explaining,  "It  is 
a  peculiarity  of  bishops  that  they  do  not  like  to  be  alone." 
"I  was  constantly  thinking,"  he  added,  "of  the  difference 
between  Harvard  and  Yale.  Yale  is  democratic,  religious, 
institutional;  Harvard  is  aristocratic,  literary,  individual- 
istic; but  both  of  them  are  idealistic  in  an  emphatic  Puritan 

way." 

From  Paris,  he  wrote  in  November:  "I  was  in  the 
Catacombs  last  Saturday  and  cannot  get  the  picture  out  of 
my  mind  —  thousands  and  thousands  of  human  skulls 
ranged  in  rows  along  the  narrow  passage.    All  the  time  the 


AT  AVIGNON  199 

words  kept  recurring  of  the  Good  Shepherd  'who  calleth 
them  all  by  name.'  It  was  hard  to  believe  the  words 
there." 

At  Avignon  he  deepened  his  acquaintance  with  the  half- 
dozen  popes  associated  with  it.  "When  I  lecture  on  John 
XXII  again,"  he  said,  "it  will  be  much  more  to  the  point." 
The  old  monastery  at  Cannes  took  him  back  to  the  fifth 
century.  "It  is  so  wonderfully  beautiful  all  about  here," 
he  wrote,  "that  even  the  monks  of  Lerins  must  have  had 
poetry  in  them  when  they  wrote  what  so  many  regard  as 
the  savage,  fiendish  Athanasian  Creed.  It  must  be  possible 
to  put  some  interpretation  upon  it  which  makes  it  poetic 
and  free.  Then  there  is  the  endless  charm  of  this  tideless 
sea,  which  is  the  centre  of  the  whole  world,  as  well  as  its 
joy.  What  a  grand  conception  it  was  of  the  Roman 
Empire  to  conquer  every  country  which  borders  on  it. 
But,  after  all,  the  thing  which  most  distinctly  (as  they  say 
at  Harvard)  satisfied  me  was  a  service  at  the  Russo-Greek 
Church  in  Paris,  where  I  stood  for  an  hour  and  a  half  and 
listened  to  the  Divine  Liturgy.  The  music  has  been  run- 
ning in  my  head  ever  since:  I  don't  think  I  ever  heard 
singing  to  equal  it.  It  was  far  more  impressive  than  the 
Roman  Mass.  In  the  Mass,  Christ  is  absent  until  the  priest 
brings  Him  down  on  the  Altar.  In  the  Greek  Liturgy 
the  whole  service  is  said  in  His  presence,  He  looking  down 
upon  it  all,  and  they  trying  to  show  that  they  have  profited 
by  His  teaching.  A  large  picture  of  Christ  looks  out  from 
the  Sanctuary  —  not  the  dead  or  dying  Christ  as  in  the 
Roman  Mass,  but  Christ  the  Teacher  and  the  Friend.  The 
effect  of  painting  compared  with  statuary  is  to  give  life 
and  warmth.  The  Greeks  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
statuary,  not  even  a  crucifix.  ...  I  hope  you  will  not 
think  I  have  copied  from  a  guide  book.  I  made  it  all  up 
myself." 

Then  came  one  of  the  great  sorrows  of  his  life.  December 
7,  he  wrote:  "Last  Wednesday,  three  days  ago,  I  had  a 


200  ROME 

cable  message  telling  of  the  sudden  death  of  my  only  brother. 
We  had  been  intimate  friends  all  our  lives  with  never  the 
shade  of  a  misunderstanding.  It  is  a  comfort  to  think  I 
was  with  him  for  three  weeks  before  I  sailed.  He  has 
always  been  from  childhood  a  teacher  to  whom  I  looked 
up,  from  whom  I  learned  more  than  from  any  other.  He 
was  without  ambition,  except  to  do  his  duty.  He  received 
none  of  what  the  world  calls  honours,  and  he  seemed  to 
me  the  greater  without  them.  It  humiliated  me  to  go 
from  his  house  to  New  Haven,  knowing  his  superiority  as 
a  theologian.  I  never  knew  anyone  who  could  be  so  kind. 
His  kindness  has  enveloped  me  as  an  atmosphere  ever 
since  I  can  remember.  I  have  been  saddened  beyond 
expression.  The  heart  is  gone  out  of  me,  and  I  have  no 
interest  in  further  travelling,  but  I  shall  keep  on  for  the 
form's  sake.  I  wish  I  could  return,  but  I  cannot:  my  work 
is  taken,  my  house  is  rented." 

He  was  in  Rome  before  Christmas.  "The  Riviera  has 
no  intellectual  or  religious  or  moral  interest.  Here  it  is 
different.  I  am  at  home  at  every  point:  it  is  simply  a 
continuous  panorama  of  Church  history.  I  have  studied 
about  it  all  my  life,  and  at  last  I  have  the  reality.  I  watch 
the  monks  from  my  window,  wondering  whether  I  might 
not  be  admitted  to  the  monastery  for  a  few  days.  .  .  . 
But  good-bye.  I  am  to  keep  Christmas  in  Rome,  where 
Charlemagne  kept  his,  one  thousand  years  and  more 
ago." 

His  sorrow  was  helped  by  friends  who  chanced  to  be  in 
Rome.  Among  others  he  found  his  pupil,  Roland  Cotton 
Smith;  also  Dr.  Briggs,  and  Dr.  Locke  of  Bristol.  Miss 
Froude,  a  daughter  of  the  historian,  who  was  in  the  same 
hotel,  said  one  morning  to  Miss  Briggs,  "I  don't  know 
what  I  shall  do:  they've  put  a  man  into  the  room  next 
mine  —  and  he  smokes."  The  next  day,  she  said,  "Don't 
say  a  word  about  it:  I've  met  him!"  "The  man"  not  only 
continued  to  smoke,  but  at  her  request  he  often  had  his 


PREACHING  IN  ROME  201 

after-dinner  smoke  in  her  sitting-room.  "I  have  struck 
up,"  wrote  Dr.  Allen,  "a  most  extraordinary,  intimate 
friendship  with  her.  I  was  introduced  to  her,  and  asked 
if  she  was  a  relation,  etc.;  and  she  said,  'Why,  he  is  my 
own  father.'  And  then  I  said  things  which  must  have 
pleased  her.  She  invited  me  to  lunch  at  her  table,  for  she 
wanted  me  to  meet  'her  dear  friend,'  Lady  Skelton,  and 
after  luncheon  we  adjourned  to  her  rooms  for  coffee  and  a 
long  talk;  and  I  am  going  to  her  room  this  evening  for 
another  effort  to  settle  the  universe." 

After  the  New  Year,  he  wrote  to  friends  who  like  himself 
had  been  in  trouble:  "I  have  a  certain  feeling  of  inward 
reproach  that  I  can  enjoy  Rome,  and  find  myself  profoundly 
interested  in  some  special  research  after  a  great  change  has 
passed  over  life.  There  must  be  some  deeper  meaning  in 
the  familiar  teaching  that  Christ  has  abolished  death,  if 
we  only  knew  how  to  formulate  it.  Meantime  there  is  the 
sorrow  of  the  parting,  the  sense  of  loneliness.  Time  will 
in  measure  heal  the  wound,  and,  it  may  be,  is  one  aspect  of 
the  Grace  of  God.  But  —  ah,  well!  I  thought  of  you  at 
Church  in  the  prayers,  and  again  in  the  Communion  Office. 
.  .  .  There  has  never  been  in  so  short  a  time  so  many 
losses  and  gaps  in  the  circle  in  which  I  move :  Percy  Browne, 
my  own  brother,  Professor  J.  H.  Thayer,  and  now  Horace 
Scudder.  Yet  with  all  the  sense  of  inward  reproach  at 
being  away,  which  I  cannot  overcome,  I  feel  it  providential 
that  I  should  be  in  Rome.  One  gets  here  as  nowhere  else 
the  sense  of  the  instability  of  human  things  and  yet  the 
corresponding  sense  of  their  eternal  significance.  They 
all  continue  to  live :  this  life  and  the  coming  life  seem 
to  make  but  one  existence.  .  .  I  preached  last  Sunday 
morning  at  St.  Paul's-within-the-walls.  It  is  a  veritable 
sensation  to  be  standing  up  in  a  Christian  Church  in  the 
place  where  St.  Paul  was  anxious  to  come.  His  memorials 
are  all  about  here.  But  the  great  trouble  with  Roman 
religion  is  that  it  has  lost  Christ.    He  is  never  more  to 


202  ROME 

these  Romans  than  an  infant  of  two  years  in  his  mother's 
arms.  Mary  has  completely  taken  His  place,  and  the 
thought  of  God  has  receded  into  the  remote  background. 
Religion  here  has  degenerated  into  effeminacy." 

On  St.  Paul's  Day,  after  going  to  St.  Paul's-without- 
the-walls,  he  wrote:  "My  contempt  for  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment grows  upon  me  here.  To  think  that  Englishmen  ever 
should  have  descended  so  low  as  to  despise  their  nationality 
and  grovel  at  the  feet  of  the  Pope!  Cardinal  Manning  for 
example,  while  still  an  English  clergyman,  getting  down  on 
his  knees  in  the  mud  in  one  of  the  Roman  streets  when 
Pio  Nono  passed  by!  It  is  worse  than  the  humiliation  of 
England  by  King  John  —  the  precursor,  I  fear,  of  England's 
decline  and  its  loss  of  prestige  among  the  nations  of  the 
world.  If  that  should  prove  to  be  true,  I  should  attribute 
it  in  great  measure  to  the  fatal  influence  of  Pusey,  Newman, 
Keble,  et  id  omne  genus,  who  in  the  critical  moment  were 
thinking  of  Rome  instead  of  England,  and  were  treacherous 
to  the  interests  of  England's  Church,  which  should  have 
been  the  bulwark  of  England's  nationality." 

A  letter  to  Miss  Froude  is  full  of  suggestion  for  estimat- 
ing his  own  place  as  an  historian.  "Your  father,"  he 
wrote,  "  has  done  an  important  piece  of  work  in  his  History 
of  England,  which  does  not  wholly  depend  for  its  value 
upon  strict  accuracy  of  scholarship  so  much  as  upon  its 
profound  insight  into  a  great  period  of  English  history  which 
has  come,  in  the  course  of  generations,  to  be  misunderstood 
and  misrepresented;  and,  in  addition  to  this,  he  has  told  the 
story  with  great  charm  of  the  literary  imagination.  He  has 
succeeded  in  reversing  the  judgment  of  the  period,  and  that 
is  a  great  work  to  have  accomplished.  His  history  takes 
its  place  by  the  side  of  Hume  and  Macaulay,  both  of  whom 
had  similar  gifts  to  his  own,  and,  like  them,  he  will  long 
continue  to  be  read;  for  these  gifts  are  rare.  Both  Hume 
and  Macaulay  are  denounced  for  their  errors  and  prejudices ; 
but  it  makes  no  difference  in  the  demand  for  their  work,  nor 


FROUDE  203 

does  it  lessen  their  influence.  They  have  passed  into 
literature. 

"There  are,  as  you  know,  two  schools  or  methods  of  his- 
torical study,  one  of  which  seeks  for  larger  views  of  the 
course  of  history,  based  upon  insight  into  general  principles, 
with  the  object  of  drawing  moral  lessons  from  the  movement 
of  events  and  of  telling  the  world  what  its  history  means. 
The  other  method  waives  all  this,  and  follows  antiquarian 
research  with  microscopic  eye  for  details  and  a  conscientious- 
ness about  the  fact,  which  seems  almost  morbid.  It  would 
be  well  if  these  two  methods  could  be  combined,  thus  giving 
us  the  ideal  result.  But  they  rarely  or  never  meet  in  the 
same  writer.  It  is  beyond  the  scope  of  human  powers 
that  they  should  ever  be  thoroughly  represented  by  any 
one,  for,  if  they  were,  no  history  could  ever  be  written  — 
only  detached  monographs  with  no  relation  to  the  larger 
movement  of  events.  It  has  been  for  a  long  time  the  usage 
of  the  critical  antiquarian  school  to  denounce  the  other 
method  as  valueless  and  not  entitled  to  be  called  history. 

"Let  the  work  stand  as  he  has  left  it.  If  he  is  inaccurate 
in  details  it  does  not  affect  the  general  value  of  his  work. 
If  his  work  is  otherwise  of  permanent  value,  as  I  feel  sure 
it  is,  the  great  world  will  in  the  long  run  lay  stress  on  the 
positive  merit  and  where  there  are  deficiencies  will  grate- 
fully overlook  them,  just  as  nature  kindly  conceals  or 
overgrows  whatever  is  unsightly,  and  gives  the  large  and 
pleasing  impression.  Is  it  not  the  same  question  which 
divides  artists,  which  makes  Turner,  for  example,  the  symbol 
of  all  that  is  most  obnoxious  to  the  opposite  school?  You 
must  not  regard  me  as  deprecating  the  importance  or 
necessity  of  accuracy,  though  anyone  is  liable  to  that 
charge  who  defends  the  larger  method  of  writing  history 
against  the  near-sighted  school,  who  have  another  aim. 
And  even  they  fight  and  differ  among  themselves  and  pull 
to  pieces  each  other's  work." 

He  felt  increasingly  that  Christian  Rome  was  a  continua- 


204  ROME 

tion  of  pagan  Rome;  the  popes  consciously  succeeding 
the  Caesars.  But  there  was  a  difference.  Pagan  temples 
were  glorious  without,  bare  within;  Christian  temples  the 
reverse.  "May  it  not  be  that  the  essential  distinction," 
he  said,  "is  written  here:  one  religion  dealing  with  the 
body,  the  other  with  the  spirit?  .  .  . 

"  There  is  another  fact.  For  the  first  thousand  years 
the  altars  were  so  placed  that  the  clergy  in  the  services 
faced  the  congregation,  instead  of  standing  with  their 
backs  to  the  people."  Throughout  Italy  and  Germany 
he  studied  the  forms  of  the  altars.  The  side  altars  were 
almost  invariably  tables.  These  in  most  cases  were  the 
original  altars  of  the  Churches,  the  more  elaborate  high 
altars  displacing  them.  He  sought  out  chapels  in  crypts, 
to  which  older  furniture  might  be  relegated;  and  there  too 
he  found  the  tables.  At  every  step  he  was  convinced  that 
the  table  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Sacrament  for  which  it 
stood  belonged  to  the  ages  of  faith.  "It  looks,"  he  wrote 
in  a  note-book,  "as  though  the  altar  survived  in  its  form  as 
a  table,  until  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century.  Then  two 
causes  combined  to  the  change:  (i)  the  Renaissance  with 
its  desire  for  rich  decoration  and  showy  effect,  to  which 
the  table  did  not  lend  itself;  and  (2)  the  attack  on  Tran- 
substantiation  which  was  going  on  through  the  fifteenth 
century  by  thinkers  and  nominalists,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
by  the  artists,  on  the  other,  who  were  producing  '  cenacolas ' 
or  'Last  Suppers,'  which  had  the  effect  of  weakening  the 
miracle  of  the  Mass.  The  altar  then  came  as  a  protest  and 
assertion  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  in  face  of  the 
Protestant  Movement.  And  from  the  sixteenth  century, 
it  grew  to  be  almost  universal.  But  they  did  not  destroy 
the  tables:  they  relegated  them  to  an  inferior  position. 
Still  it  was  fine  in  the  Dome  at  Florence  to  see  the  tables 
lining  both  sides  of  the  Church  with  hardly,  I  think,  an 
exception." 

St.  Peter's  did  not  move  him.     It  had  no  historic  distinc- 


DUCHESNE  205 

tion  for  him:  nothing  of  importance  to  the  Church  or  the 
world  had  taken  place  in  it.  No  great  popes  were  asso- 
ciated with  it.  It  represented  only  a  reduced  Latin  church. 
Instead  of  glorifying  the  great  popes,  men  like  Leo  and 
Gregory  and  Innocent,  it  put  up  heroic  figures  of  the  poor 
popes  of  the  17th  and  18th  centuries.  And  Paul  V's 
name  on  the  facade  was  an  offence. 

One  afternoon  he  walked  to  the  spot  where  Constantine 
had  his  vision,  and  was  enthusiastic  over  the  beauty  of  the 
view.  "How  the  vision,"  he  exclaimed,  "seems  to  wait 
upon  the  beauty  of  the  outward  world,  —  Wordsworth  in 
the  Lake  Country,  the  rise  of  the  Renaissance  in  the 
Riviera,  and  Constantine  with  this  exquisite  picture  of 
Rome  and  the  Campagna  and  the  Tiber  flowing  at  his  feet. 
The  magnificent  villa  here,  now  decaying,  was  built  for 
Clement  VII,  who  summoned  Henry  VIII  in  vain.  The 
only  vision  he  had  here  was  the  departure  of  England  from 
the  papal  fold.  .  .  . 

"I  made  a  call  yesterday  on  the  Abbe  Duchesne,  one  of 
the  best  type  of  ecclesiastics.  He  has  no  great  respect  for 
what  they  do  at  the  Vatican,  none  at  all  for  their  flum- 
meries. But  he  clings  to  the  Pope,  and  believes  greatly 
in  Christian  unity.  All  other  questions  seem  to  him  quite 
unimportant.  I  couldn't  tell  him  how  utterly  hopeless  his 
vision  was.  .  .  .  The  Episcopal  Bishop  of  Ohio  is  here 
making  a  visitation,  but  Rome  does  not  appear  to  be 
moved." 

"You  must  not  get  too  High  Church!"  he  wrote  to  a 
pupil.  "When  you  talk  of  the  Corporate  Church,  I  get 
a  little  afraid  for  you,  because  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  is  such  a  small  fragment  of  the  common  Christen- 
dom. One  gets  here  in  Rome  the  'Corporate  Church'  in 
its  magnitude  and  power  to  such  an  extent  as  to  overawe 
the  imagination.  I  went  last  Monday  to  the  Papal  Jubilee 
in  St.  Peter's.  The  vast  Cathedral  was  full  with  50,000 
people,  the  Pope  came  in  borne  aloft  in  his  chair  waving 


2o6  ROME 

his  benediction,  and  the  trumpeters  in  the  dome  heralded 
his  advent.  Then  the  choir  began  the  'Tu  es  Petrus,'  and 
he  came  slowly  up  the  nave  with  handkerchiefs  waving  and 
voices  shouting,  'Viva  il  papa  re.'  I  had  the  best  seat  in 
the  Church.  Opposite  to  me  were  the  Cardinals  from  all 
parts  of  the  world.  Then  the  bishops  were  there  by  the 
hundreds,  but  in  the  presence  of  the  princes  of  the  Church 
they  were  in  the  background.  I  was  opposite  the  diplo- 
matic representatives  of  Europe,  and  among  them  came 
one  (I  am  sorry  to  say)  from  England,  bearing  a  letter 
from  Edward  VII.  Nowhere  but  in  St.  Peter's  could  such 
a  function  be  reproduced  with  such  thrilling  effects.  But  it 
leaves  me  where  it  found  me,  with  the  conviction  of  Luther 
that  the  just  shall  live  by  faith.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  Corporate  Church  will  take  care  of  itself,  but  the 
highest  effect  of  the  faith  is  the  struggle  of  the  individual 
man.     Do  you  not  agree  with  me?" 

One  day,  he  wrote  that  he  believed  that  he  had  seen  the 
beginning  of  the  Madonna  tendency  in  art.  "It  was," 
he  said,  "in  the  Catacomb  of  St.  Priscilla  —  a  tiny  picture 
in  a  dark  corner.  It  seems  to  be  introduced  somewhat 
timidly,  as  a  new  symbol.  The  prophet  Isaiah  is  in  the 
background,  announcing  the  birth  of  the  Child.  Both 
faces  have  a  natural  human  expression,  with  a  wistful, 
chastened  look,  with  no  attempt  to  give  the  divine  or 
supernatural.     To  me  it  was  a  thrilling  discovery." 

Early  in  May  he  went  away  from  Rome  with  infinite 
regret.  "But,"  he  said,  "I  have  the  feeling  that  I  have 
done  something  of  more  importance  than  I  yet  realize,  in 
getting  down  to  the  sources  of  history  and  of  life."  Then 
came  Assisi,  where  he  delightedly  followed  up  the  haunts 
of  St.  Francis.  "It  confirms  my  observation,"  he  wrote, 
"that  the  visions  come  in  beautiful  places.  One  feels  the 
contrast  between  the  small  house  in  the  narrow  lane  and 
the  world-wide  recognition  St.  Francis  has  gained,  greater 
to-day  than  ever,  and  still  growing."    Perugia,  asleep  for 


DISLIKE  OF  GOETHE  207 

five  hundred  years,  unchanged  for  the  worshippers  of  the 
mediaeval,  seemed  to  him  beautiful  beyond  description. 
As  he  reflected  upon  resplendent  churches  he  was  inclined 
to  believe  that  no  church  building  had  yet  succeeded  in 
symbolizing  worship.  "They  all  fail  somewhere,"  he  said. 
"When  one  gets  over  the  worship  of  the  Gothic,  one  must 
admit  that  the  ideal  of  a  building  which  shall  enshrine  the 
thoughts  of  the  heart  is  unattainable." 

"You  can't  get  Truth,"  he  meditated  in  Florence, 
"by  elaborate  and  well-directed  research,  no  matter  how 
painful  and  continuous;  but  it  comes  to  some  modest 
toiler  who  does  not  expect  it,  at  some  moment  when  he  is 
not  thinking  of  its  revelation.  It  comes  by  a  flash,  and 
stealthily,  and  you  hardly  know  that  you  have  had  the 
vision.  As  Coleridge  says,  you  either  see  it,  or  you  do  not 
see  it.  To  this  I  may  add  that  when  you  are  sure,  then 
you  don't  see  it;  and  when  you  are  not  sure,  it  is  more 
likely." 

At  Frankfurt  he  carefully  examined  Goethe's  house, 
and  found  reasons  for  Goethe's  selfishness  in  the  indulgence 
of  his  parents,  who  gave  him  a  whole  floor  of  the  house,  and 
his  sister  only  a  little  back  room.  He  studied  the  parents' 
portraits,  and  deduced  from  them  that  the  father  was 
formal,  self-important,  mechanical,  obstinate,  sure  that  he 
knew  how  sons  should  be  brought  up,  and  that  the  mother 
was  conscious  of  the  joy  of  life,  easygoing,  appreciative 
of  pure  pleasure.  But  even  so,  he  did  not  see  how  two 
such  faces  prophesied  Goethe.  He  imagined  the  father 
watching  Goethe  from  his  window,  "using  the  window  for 
all  it  was  worth."  And,  respectable  as  the  home  was,  it 
was  oppressive. 

August  1  found  him  in  Eisenach,  and,  August  7,  he  was 
writing  letters  from  Dresden.  "This  evening,"  he  wrote, 
"I  leave  for  Wittenberg  and  shall  spend  all  to-morrow 
'doing'  that  blessed  little  town.  These  later  days  can 
only  be  compared  to  Rome.     Erfurt  and  Eisenach  were 


2o8  ROME 

inspiring,  and  Weimar  had  its  fascination,  but  I  have 
concluded  that  I  don't  like  Goethe.  On  the  other  hand, 
Luther  grows  larger.  It  gives  one  a  thrill  of  delight  to 
see  his  statue  everywhere." 

A  week  later,  he  reached  Amsterdam:  "The  visit  yes- 
terday to  Monnikendam,  one  of  the  dead  cities,  has 
suggested  a  subject  for  a  sermon  on  the  relation 
between  individualism  and  the  institution.  If  there  had 
been  a  man  in  Monnikendam  when  the  crisis  in  its  fortunes 
came,  it  might  to-day  be  greater  than  Amsterdam.  God 
would  have  spared  the  city  as  in  Abraham's  time.  .  .  . 
What  a  great  occasion  the  coronation  of  the  English  King 
has  been.  As  I  read  in  the  English  Times  the  glowing 
story,  I  almost  wished  I  had  been  there.  Only  it  was  not 
American,  indeed  it  was  the  glorification  of  all  that  America 
was  called  into  existence  to  condemn  and  remove  from  the 
face  of  the  world.  The  spirit  of  the  Puritan  survives  in 
me  more  than  I  knew.  I  was  disquieted  at  Berlin  with  the 
Brandenburg  strut  and  pose.  The  Emperor  has  lined  one 
of  the  avenues  in  the  Park  with  some  fifty  statues  of  his 
predecessors  —  the  margraves  of  Brandenburg,  who  cul- 
minated in  Kaiser  Wilhelm  I.  But  until  the  18th  century 
there  was  not  one  of  them  who  did  anything  which  the 
world  valued  or  ever  heard  of.  But  all  the  same  there  they 
stand  in  the  most  imposing  attitudes,  and  the  really  great 
ones  are  placed  behind  them  as  if  only  ministering  servants 
to  their  high  mightinesses  —  Kant  and  Luther,  Bismarck 
et  air 

From  the  English  Cambridge,  Dr.  Allen  wrote,  August 
27:  "The  long  year  is  over.  It  seems  like  a  dream — ■ 
those  distant  days  in  Rome  and  other  towns  in  Italy. 
That  was  the  best  part  of  it  all,  and  I  hope,  when  I  come 
to  revise  it,  that  something  will  remain  among  my 
impressions  of  permanent  value." 


CHAPTER  XVI 
WARNINGS 
1903 -1904 

THE  fall  of  1902  was  very  domestic.  "In  No.  2,  Phil- 
lips Place,"  Dr.  Allen  wrote,  "there  has  been  a 
revolution,  the  overthrow  of  the  old  dynasty  and  the 
coming  to  the  throne  of  new  rulers  in  the  presence  of  a  man 
and  his  wife.  Their  only  fitness  for  the  position  is  called 
in  the  language  of  that  department  'willingness.'  The 
worst  thing,  casting  a  dark  shadow  over  the  situation,  is 
this  coal  famine.  I  have  thought  and  read  more  of  that 
problem  than  of  anything  else  since  I  came  home,  but  with 
no  practical  result." 

An  unusual  number  of  old  pupils  and  friends  came  to 
call  on  him  after  his  long  absence;  and  as  they  sat  in  his 
study,  hearing  him  discourse  of  Rome  and  Raphael  and 
St.  Peter's  and  altars  which  were  tables,  they  found  him  as 
peaceful  and  gentle  as  ever,  and  envied  the  calm  of  the 
scholar's  life,  little  dreaming  the  confusion  in  the  domestic 
part  of  his  mind.  But  he  felt  it  himself,  and  for  weeks 
stayed  at  home.  "It  is  just  as  well,"  he  explained,  "that 
I  cannot  come;  for  you  would  see  a  bewildered  individual, 
living  between  two  worlds,  and  not  just  at  home  in  either." 

Before  Christmas  the  coal  famine  and  the  kitchen  caused 
him  to  close  his  house  and  flee  to  Riverbank  Court  —  a 
hotel  on  the  banks  of  the  Charles.  "I  have  been  meaning 
to  write  almost  every  day,"  he  wrote  to  Mr  Taylor, 
January  6,  1903,  "to  tell  you  how  things  were  going  with 
me.  To  take  up  the  story  where  we  left  it,  last  September, 
15  209 


210  WARNINGS 

I  got  a  man  and  his  wife.  He  was  a  German,  and  she 
English.  Things  went  fairly  well  for  about  ten  weeks, 
when  she  gave  me  notice  she  was  going  back  to  England 
in  a  week.  It  seemed  they  had  only  intended  to  stay  long 
enough  to  raise  the  money.  She  also  was  taking  leave  of 
him  as  well  as  of  me,  for  she  had  discovered  that  he  had 
deceived  her:  he  was  not  only  a  German,  but  a  German 
Jew,  and  she  could  not  abide  the  situation.  .  .  .  Then 
there  was  the  difficulty  of  getting  coal.  ...  So  I  fled 
precipitately  from  my  sea  of  troubles  and,  for  the  time,  am 
in  a  safe  harbour.  One  can't  get  exactly  what  one  wants 
in  this  world,  and  here  —  if  I  might  venture  a  criticism  — 
it  is  too  warm;  but  perhaps,  under  the  circumstances,  that 
is  an  ungracious  remark."  He  even  missed  his  domestic 
troubles :  he  said  that  he  hated  having  everything  done  for 
him,  and  he  longed  to  have  some  one  ask  him  to  go  down  to 
the  Square  for  a  plumber.  But  he  still  could  sew.  "And 
I  sew  well,  too,"  he  would  say  with  his  indescribable 
chuckle;  "when  I  sew  a  button  on  a  shirt,  the  shirt  may 
come  off  —  the  button,  never." 

In  March,  when  he  had  returned  to  his  house,  he  wrote 
to  his  son:  "I  am  going  to  make  an  address  to  the  Boston 
Clergy,  and  my  subject  will  be  The  National  Aspects  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation."  In  this  speech  he  showed  that 
the  Reformation  was  practically  accomplished  by  the  rebirth 
of  modern  nations  long  before  Luther.  When  each  man 
ceased  to  think  of  himself  as  belonging  to  Christendom, 
and  belonging  rather  to  a  Nation,  that  moment  the  Refor- 
mation had  come.  Rome  is  afraid  of  the  Bible,  because 
the  Old  Testament  is  the  history  of  a  Nation,  and  the  New 
concludes  with  imprecations  against  the  Empire,  exalt- 
ing the  Nations  before  God  in  its  final  scene.  So  he  ex- 
horted the  Church  to  cherish  the  Reformation  in  the  new 
century;  for  as  the  last  century's  watchword  was  Humanity, 
that  of  the  new  was  Nationality.  The  Nations  were  to 
live  and  to  hold  one  another  in  check  for  the  common  good. 


NAME  OF  THE  CHURCH  211 

The  last  day  of  March,  he  wrote  to  a  pupil:  "As  to  the 
change  of  name  of  the  Church,  it  interests  me  to  watch 
the  movement  without  rousing  me  to  take  any  part  in 
it.  Those  who  dislike  the  old  name,  do  not  so  far  allege 
any  sufficient  reasons  for  abandoning  it.  Their  objection 
seems  to  spring  from  a  dislike  to  be  classed  with  sects  which 
arose  in  the  17  th  century,  after  the  Reformation  was  over, 
and  which  are  known  as  Protestant.  One  can  sympathize 
with  that  feeling  and  respect  it.  It  may  be  that  this 
demand  for  a  change  is  one  of  those  peculiarly  American 
movements,  which  finds  analogies  to  a  certain  degree  in 
the  parliament  of  religions  —  some  larger  Church,  which 
can  be  attained  by  dropping  all  reminders  of  old  con- 
troversies, such  as  Presbyterian,  and  Congregational,  and 
Episcopal.  In  the  course  of  300  years  these  distinctions 
have  grown  dim,  and  to  many  now  seem  unimportant  or 
unmeaning.  I  should  not  be  surprised,  if  we  change  our 
name,  if  the  other  Churches  should  be  incited  to  a  similar 
movement.  If  Christianity  is  going  to  make  a  great  united 
forward  movement  and  sects  to  coalesce,  it  may  be  changing 
names  will  be  the  beginning  of  it. 

"On  the  other  hand,  we  should  lose  something  by  the 
change,  and  our  name  would  no  longer  express  our  lineage, 
which  is  valuable  and  not  to  be  ashamed  of.  'Protestant' 
is  a  greater  word  in  many  ways  than  'Catholic,'  and  carries 
the  traditions  of  the  great  nationalities,  who,  in  breaking 
away  from  Catholic  Christendom,  created  the  modern 
world.  'Catholic'  carries  the  traditions  of  people  in  their 
leading  strings,  who  had  not  yet  the  consciousness  of 
national  independence  and  freedom.  Protestantism  and 
Nationalism  are  synonymous,  and  the  Catholic  Church  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  against  which  the  nations  protested,  still 
regards  nationality  as  a  defect  or  evil  to  be  tolerated, 
having  its  origin  only  in  human  authority  and  not  in 
Divine.  The  tendency  of  the  Roman  Church  if  unchecked 
would  bankrupt  any  nation,   so  that  we  are  really  all 


2i2  WARNINGS 

united  from  the  national  point  of  view  in  our  everlasting 
protest  against  it.  The  word  Catholic  is  essentially  a  word 
which  the  Roman  Church  has  a  right  to  think  peculiarly 
its  own.  The  Greek  Church  has  never  made  much  of  it, 
and  cannot,  for  it  sanctions  the  idea  of  national  Churches. 
In  all  recent  investigations  in  Church  History  it  grows 
more  evident  that  the  Roman  Church  originated  most  of 
the  features  which  we  call  Catholic.  It  would  be  quite 
impossible,  and  it  might  be  dangerous  for  us  to  take  the 
word  Catholic,  if  it  were  possible.  But  it  would  require 
more  explanation  to  show  why  we  were  Catholic  as  well  as 
the  Roman  Church,  than  it  does  now  to  explain  Protestant 
Episcopal.  I  should  be  afraid  we  should  play  into  Roman 
hands  if  we  tried  to  appropriate  the  title.  Nobody  could 
tell  in  advance  what  would  happen,  I  suppose,  but  the 
risks  would  be  great.  We  should  have  to  correct  the  usage 
of  centuries;  histories  and  dictionaries  would  have  to  be 
corrected  in  order  to  prevent  misunderstandings.  It  would 
be  a  mistake  to  take  that  as  our  title,  even  with  American 
as  a  prefix.  The  only  other  word  which  could  neutralize 
its  sinister  force  would  be  Protestant.  But  if  any  one 
were  to  suggest  The  Protestant  Catholic  Church  of  America, 
he  would  not  be  taken  seriously,  I  suppose.  Reformed 
Catholic  is  another  possible  title,  but  I  have  not  heard  it 
suggested.  American  Church  does  not  quite  suit,  for  it 
carries  no  distinctive  meaning.  We  understand  and  can 
use  it  freely  among  ourselves  as  the  correlative  of  The 
English  Church,  which  we  carry  in  our  consciousness. 
But  the  great  majority  of  the  people  would  not  understand 
or  like  it,  and  I  fear  Episcopal  would  still  cling  to  us, 
despite  our  efforts  to  get  rid  of  it.  And  so,  as  I  said,  it  is 
interesting  to  watch  the  discussion  of  the  question  of 
changing  our  name  to  see  what  it  reveals  of  the  inner  moods 
of  our  Church  life.  The  reasons  for  changing  are  not  irra- 
tional, but  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  substitute  seems 
insuperable.     The  truth  is,  names  are  given  in  baptism 


ILLNESS  213 

and  not  coined  to  order  or  reason.  And  we  might  find  if 
we  changed  our  name  that  the  power  and  influence  of  the 
sects  (including  the  Roman)  were  too  much  for  us.  They 
might  insist  on  naming  us  according  to  their  preference. 
Indeed  there  is  danger  lest  we  make  ourselves  ridiculous. 
But  the  ventilation  of  the  whole  question  will  not  be 
bad." 

Into  his  plans  for  the  spring  an  attack  of  the  grip  inter- 
posed itself;  and,  added  to  the  grip,  was  the  anxiety  caused 
by  the  sudden  and  prolonged  illness  of  his  son  Harry  at 
Albany.  As  soon  as  he  was  well,  he  went  to  Albany;  and 
later  sent  daily  letters  rilled  with  a  tenderness  that  seems 
a  mother's  and  a  father's  in  one. 

He  learned  from  his  own  sick-room  that  his  faithful  old 
carpenter  was  desperately  ill;  unable  to  go  to  him  he  wrote 
him  this  letter: — 

"  Cambridge,  April  21,  1903. 
"Dear  Mr.  Anderson: 

"I  am  very  sorry  to  know  that  you  have  given  up  the 
business  which  I  have  associated  with  you  for  these  thirty  years, 
and  that  you  have  been  obliged  to  leave  it  on  account  of  ill 
health.  I  have  been  ill  myself  and  not  yet  able  to  go  out 
much  or  I  should  have  called  to  see  you.  But  as  I  cannot 
hope  to  do  so  at  present  I  send  this  line  to  assure  you  of  my  deep 
sympathy,  of  my  prayer  that  God  will  deal  most  gently  with 
you.  As  I  look  back  on  all  these  years  of  my  residence  in 
Cambridge,  I  see  you  always  faithful  in  the  service  of  your 
fellow-men,  doing  honourably  a  man's  work  and  a  man's  part  in 
life.  All  such  service  is  done  in  God's  sight  and  brings  with  it 
His  reward.  May  He  bless  you  with  a  sense  of  His  goodness  and 
His  protecting  care. 

"  Your  sincere  friend, 

"Alexander  V.  G.  Allen." 

The  man  died.  But  his  wife  said  that  the  letter  was  a 
comfort  to  him  at  the  last,  and  now  it  comforted  her  in  her 
desolation. 


2i4  WARNINGS 

No  record  can  be  made  of  Dr.  Allen's  care  for  the  poor. 
He  did  not  believe  in  modern  methods  of  charity.  As  he 
sat  in  his  study  he  could  see  who  came  up  the  path,  and 
certain  faces  appealed  to  him  so  irresistibly  that  he  went 
to  the  door  before  the  maid  had  time  to  answer  the  bell. 
Some  one  who  saw  would  say,  "You've  been  giving  money 
again  to  that  worthless  man."  He  would  simply  blush  at 
that.  "Don't  you  know,"  the  protester  would  add,  "that 
his  record  isn't  good?"  "Yes,"  Dr.  Allen  would  answer, 
"I  know  his  record  isn't  good:  that's  why  he  comes  to 
me."  Mrs.  Josiah  Parsons  Cooke  received  an  appeal  from 
a  rough  man  one  morning;  asked  why  he  came  to  her,  the 
man  answered  simply,  "Because  I  couldn't  find  Dr.  Allen." 
Evidently,  he  was  well  known  among  the  fraternity,  but 
one  wonders  if  such  evident  sympathy  for  distress  was 
often  imposed  upon.  A  student  recalls  that  one  day  about 
this  time  Dr.  Allen  asked  him  to  remain  after  the  class. 

When  they  were  quite  alone,  he  asked  where  was ,  a 

man  employed  by  the  School.  The  student  said  that  he 
had  heard  that  he  was  off  on  a  "spree."  Dr.  Allen  said 
that  he  had  feared  it.  "Go  and  find  him,  and  bring  him 
back,"  he  added,  "and  spend  anything  that  is  necessary: 
I  shall  gladly  pay  everything.  Say  nothing  about  this." 
Taunted  with  the  objection  that  his  methods  were  disap- 
proved by  modern  charity,  he  replied,  "My  commission  is, 
'Never  turn  thy  face  from  any  poor  man.'  "  But  only 
one  or  two  knew  his  methods:  they  were  in  secret. 

Still  in  Cambridge,  in  spite  of  the  doctor's  warning  that 
he  must  get  away,  he  wrote,  July  22,  to  Mr.  Taylor,  whose 
aged  grandmother  had  just  died:  "What  a  blessing  it  is  to 
be  permitted  to  depart  quietly  is  seen  in  the  contrast  of 
the  Pope,  who  had  to  die  in  the  glare  of  publicity,  with 
every  act  and  word  chronicled,  and  in  the  midst  of  excite- 
ment on  the  part  of  attendants,  hierarchy,  Church,  and 
world.  It  was  a  sort  of  official  death,  to  be  gone  through 
with  all  the  prescribed  formularies  and  nothing  omitted. 


w 
u 
< 

Pi 


EMERSON  215 

And  the  dear  old  man  felt  in  the  same  way,  and  yet  how  his 
simple  humanity  stood  out  in  the  whole  process.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  been  doing  an  immense  amount  of  reading  these 
last  few  weeks,  amazed  at  myself  at  the  ease  and  quickness 
large  volumes  are  disposed  of.  I  find  I  don't  read  any 
longer  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  opinion,  for  that  has  been 
fixed.  It  interests  me  to  see  how  others  look  at  things  in 
comparison  with  my  own  views,  and  I  note  it  as  one  of  the 
distinct  changes  which  time  brings  with  it. 

"We  have  become  very  tired  herewith  the  Emerson  carou- 
sal, which  turns  out  to  be  in  reality  the  Unitarians'  Cen- 
tennial, they  having  decided  that  they  couldn't  do  better 
than  tie  to  him  as  the  exponent  of  religion.  But  the  Free 
Religionists  and  the  No  Religionists  have  also  shared  in  the 
movement,  and  generally  the  Boston  crowd  has  made  a 
fool  of  itself.  Sanborn  says  that  Emerson  completed  Plato; 
another  man,  that  he  surpassed  Shakespeare  in  his  poetry. 
That  there  ought  to  be  an  Emerson  Chair  in  Harvard,  and 
that  he  should  be  taught  in  the  common  schools,  are  among 
other  notable  utterances,  none  of  which  may  reach  Cin- 
cinnati without  my  telling  you.  My  own  impression  is 
that  he  was  a  sort  of  Jacob  Abbott,  of  a  higher  kind,  who 
pushed  the  Rollo  method  into  literature  and  other  things." 

He  wrote  to  his  son  in  July  from  Woodstock  Inn, 
Vermont:  "  Tis  rather  a  fine  place  here,  which  I  reached 
at  five  this  afternoon.  My  first  impulse  on  reaching  such 
a  place  is  to  form  a  resolution  to  leave  it  the  next  day,  but 
I  shall  give  Woodstock  a  longer  trial."  Two  of  his  former 
pupils  came,  G.  H.  Thomas  and  Samuel  Tyler,  and  at 
once  appropriated  him,  sitting  on  either  side  of  him  as  he 
ate,  and  also  as  he  smoked  his  pipe  on  the  veranda.  They 
kept  him  talking,  to  their  great  delight,  and  he  enjoyed 
Woodstock  after  all.  A  younger  brother  of  Thomas's, 
Arthur  Thomas,  a  law  student  at  Harvard,  also  sat  at  his 
feet,  and  later  called  him  master,  entering  through  him 
into  parts  of  life  which  he  had  not  hitherto  discovered. 


2i6  WARNINGS 

The  next  spring  Dr.  Allen  prepared  and  presented  him  for 
Confirmation. 

Nor  did  he  neglect  students  at  a  distance.  One  who  was 
preparing  a  speech  for  the  coming  Church  Congress  asked 
advice.  Instantly  he  answered:  "I  cannot  contribute 
anything  of  importance,  but  there  are  points  which  rose  in 
my  mind  as  I  read  William  James's  book,  which  I  have  not 
seen  mentioned.  I  thought  that  James's  method  was  not 
a  sound  one,  in  making  his  appeal  to  individual  experiences 
exclusively,  and  further  in  taking  exaggerated  cases  as 
affording  the  best  study  of  the  subject.  In  fact  he  de- 
feated his  own  purpose  by  this  method,  and  it  was  not  sur- 
prising he  could  draw  no  conclusion.  It  is  only  when  we 
recognize  the  universality  of  experience  that  we  may  be 
warranted  in  inferring  a  general  law  in  regard  to  the  work- 
ing of  the  soul  in  man,  which  points  to  some  objective 
reality  corresponding  to  it.  Such  for  example  is  the  sense 
of  sin,  the  value  of  repentance,  and  the  assurance  of  for- 
giveness. As  seen  in  Bunyan,  in  such  fearful  intensity,  it 
is  not  after  all  so  impressive  or  convincing,  as  in  the  life 
of  the  Christian  Church  from  the  beginning,  as  incorporated 
in  creeds,  worked  over  in  theology  century  after  century 
from  Anselm's  time  (to  go  no  further  back)  down  to  our 
own.  Books  on  the  Atonement  or  kindred  subjects  form 
a  library  in  themselves.  All  this  James  not  only  overlooks, 
but  deliberately  sets  aside  as  not  pertaining  to  the  argu- 
ment. But  there,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  heart  of  the 
whole  discussion.  Individual  exaggerated  experiences,  when 
toned  down,  confirm  the  main  theme,  but  as  they  stand  in 
their  appalling  intensity  indicate  a  morbidness  of  consti- 
tution which  is  misleading  and  unreal  in  its  results.  One 
function  of  the  organic  Church  is  to  modify  these  exuberant 
utterances  of  the  individual.  In  this  question  of  sin  the 
Christian  Church  has  laboured  'to  keep  the  mean  between 
...  too  much  stiffness  in  refusing  and  too  much  easiness 
in  admitting '  —  to  insist  upon  the  heinousness  of  sin,  and 


WILLIAM  JAMES  217 

yet  not  carry  it  so  far  as  to  breed  despair;  to  make  forgive- 
ness not  too  easy  lest  it  be  despised,  or  too  difficult  lest  no 
effort  be  made  to  secure  it.  James  rejects  all  this  as  having 
no  bearing  on  the  problem,  and  takes  extreme  individual 
cases  which  have  escaped  this  mediating  healing  influence. 
His  book  is  intensely  interesting,  and  strengthens  one  who 
already  believes  these  things,  but  as  an  argument  it  is  use- 
less. The  testimony  of  humanity,  of  the  race,  is  what  we 
are  after,  if  we  can  get  it.  And  in  the  Christian  Church 
we  have  this  experience  upon  so  large  a  scale,  and  under 
so  much  better  auspices  than  in  earlier  and  false  forms  of 
religion,  that  we  may  take  it  as  typical  and  final. 

"As  to  Emerson  ...  he  kicked  away  the  scaffold,  and 
hung  in  mid-air.  We  retain  and  value  the  process.  .  .  . 
I  must  say  there  is  much  that  is  cheap  and  tawdry  and 
untrue  in  Emerson;  e.g.,  when  he  says  the  wonder  is  there 
have  not  been  a  thousand  Christs,  instead  of  one;  which 
only  shows  that  he  did  not  know  Him  or  measure  the 
infinite  influence  that  has  gone  forth  from  Him." 

"I  have  adopted  a  plan,"  he  wrote  in  November,  "of 
having  the  students  come  in  by  threes  every  Friday  even- 
ing to  dinner.  They  seem  to  like  it,  and  I  am  sure  I  do. 
It  takes  a  little  while  to  thaw  them  sometimes,  but  when 
they  fairly  get  going,  they  are  interesting  enough.  .  .  . 
Things  are  very  exciting  now  in  politics,  what  with  Tam- 
many and  Panama.  The  Evening  Post  thinks  Panama 
disgraceful,  but  I  find  myself  on  the  whole  in  sympathy 
with  Roosevelt  and  Hay.  .  .  .  Did  I  tell  you  that  I  had 
been  invited  to  give  the  Dudleian  Lecture  at  Harvard  on 
the  Roman  Church?  The  terms  of  the  foundation  require 
that  the  lecture  shall  be  devoted  to  'the  detecting  and 
convincing  and  exposing  the  Idolatry  of  the  Roman  Church, 
their  tyranny,  usurpations,  damnable  heresies,  fatal  errors 
and  abominable  superstitions  and  other  crying  wickednesses 
in  their  high  places;  and,  finally,  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  that  mystical  Babylon,  that  man  of  sin,  that  apostate 


2i8  WARNINGS 

Church,  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament'  —  which  the 
same  seems  to  me  rather  strong  language.  I  am  to  give  it 
in  a  more  genial  modern  way,  and  to  show  what  the  rational 
objections  to  the  R.  C.  are  to-day;  i.e.,  if  I  give  the  lecture. 
And  on  that  point  I  am  doubtful." 

Through  the  year  1904  Dr.  Allen  went  periodically  to  a 
Boston  specialist  to  be  examined.  The  doctor  gave  him 
encouragement,  but  life  was  still  crowded.  When  an  even- 
ing visitor  stayed  later  than  11  o'clock,  the  next  day  was 
listless  and  hard;  so,  that  day  he  would  read  The  Church 
Times,  The  Guardian,  and  The  Spectator  for  diversion. 
The  Spectator  was  his  favourite  paper:  he  said  he  was  in 
danger  of  putting  it  in  place  of  the  Bible.  He  tried  to 
obey  the  doctor's  injunction  to  rest,  but  demands  were 
insistent. 

In  March,  through  the  death  of  Mrs.  Reed,  the  wife  of 
the  founder,  the  School  came  into  possession  of  its  fortune; 
and  the  financial  strain  upon  the  trustees  and  faculty  was 
materially  relieved.  It  was  one  evening  in  March  that  Dr. 
Steenstra  surprised  him  by  a  call:  he  had  grown  so  deaf  that 
he  rarely  went  out,  and  Dr.  Allen  was  delighted  to  have 
him  in  his  study  again.  "It  reminded  me  of  old  times," 
he  wrote,  "when  we  talked  theology  together."  The  next 
evening  Dean  Hodges  came,  and  there  was  long  and  eager 
talk  about  the  School.  Mrs.  Reed  gave  the  School  a  bequest 
of  $5,000.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  policy  of  the  School 
that  nothing  should  be  done  without  Dr.  Allen.  The 
younger  members  of  the  faculty  felt  that  it  would  be  wise 
to  modernize  the  curriculum,  to  introduce  more  electives, 
and  to  subdivide  departments,  giving  him,  for  example, 
an  assistant  who  should  teach  liturgies  or  canon  law.  But 
he  would  say,  "We  have  worked  very  well  in  the  old  way," 
—  and  there  the  matter  would  drop. 

He  had  been  working  hard  on  the  Dudleian  lecture  for 
three  months.     He  had  written  and  rewritten  it,  rejecting 


DUDLEIAN  LECTURE  219 

plan  after  plan.  "You  will  be  interested,"  he  wrote  to 
his  son,  April  7,  "to  know  that  I  pulled  through  the  Dud- 
leian  last  night  in  the  Fogg  Museum.  I  was  very  nervous 
about  it,  but  I  pulled  through.  It  was  my  first  appearance, 
so  to  speak,  since  my  calamitous  break-down  just  a  year 
ago."  He  avoided  words  of  condemnation,  and  confined 
himself  to  history,  as  the  rational  method  of  showing  why 
the  world  could  not  submit  to  the  Roman  obedience.  A 
few  brief  extracts  from  the  long  lecture  will  show  its  spirit. 
It  is  not  published. 

"We  must  admit  that  the  papacy  was  divinely  called  to  its 
work.  But  as  we  make  the  admission,  we  must  remember  that 
if  God  calls  an  institution  to  do  a  certain  work,  he  also  with- 
draws this  call  when  the  work  is  done.  He  summons  other 
agencies  for  the  new  tasks  which  the  progress  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  in  the  world  demands.   .  .  . 

"The  Church  of  Rome  repeated  the  mistake  of  its  prototype, 
the  old  Roman  Empire,  when  it  began  the  process  of  making 
martyrs.  .  .  .  The  State  gained  by  every  martyr  which  the 
Church  made.  .  .  .  Men  looked  to  the  secular  power  as  en- 
titled to  the  supreme  jurisdiction,  as  ministering  justice  with 
a  fairer  hand  than  the  Church.   .  .  . 

"There  is  danger  in  freedom,  but  if  the  process  of  free  inquiry 
goes  on  without  restriction,  the  errors  become  manifest,  and  are 
condemned  by  an  enlightened  judgment.  To  have  no  part  in 
the  process  —  that  is  the  serious  loss  whose  extent  cannot  be 
estimated.  .  .  . 

"To  the  State  belongs  dominion.  The  function  of  the 
Church  as  related  to  the  State  is  that  of  service.  Religion,  it 
has  been  said,  makes  a  good  servant  but  a  bad  master.  ...  It 
should  be  one  of  the  tasks  of  the  Church  to  present  the  State 
to  the  people  as  a  sacred  moral  institution.  .  .  . 

"A  Sovereign  Church  existing  for  itself  and  seeking  primarily 
its  own  success  will  in  the  end,  if  it  succeeds,  bankrupt  any 
nation.  The  fear  lest  the  Church  should  be  dominated  by  the 
State  or  lose  its  spiritual  freedom  is  minimized  to  the  lowest 
degree,  when  the  Church  assumes  ministerium  as  its  role.  .  .  . 


220  WARNINGS 

"'And  He  said  unto  them,  The  Kings  of  the  Gentiles  exercise 
lordship  over  them.  .  .  .  But  ye  shall  not  be  so;  but  he  that 
is  greatest  among  you,  let  him  be  ...  as  he  that  doth  serve. 
.  .  .    I  am  among  you  as  he  that  serveth. "' 

In  May  he  became  president  of  the  Boston  Clericus,  the 
club  founded  by  Phillips  Brooks,  and  remained  president 
till  his  death.  This  club  was  his  chief  recreation.  He  had 
no  give  and  take  in  the  discussions,  but  he  was  at  his  best 
in  the  summary  he  was  wont  to  give  at  the  end,  when 
he  ranged  through  history  and  theology,  bringing  many 
reflections  to  bear  on  the  topic  of  the  evening.  Here  as 
always  he  was  sensitive:  depressed  by  adverse  criticism, 
elated  by  appreciation;  though  at  the  time  few  understood. 
He  cultivated  a  calm  exterior  when,  often,  the  fires  were 
raging  within.     It  was  part  of  his  philosophy  of  life. 

"  George  Palmer  called  and  read  me  from  his  forthcom- 
ing book  on  George  Herbert,"  he  wrote  in  June.  "It  was 
extremely  interesting.  It  is  likely  to  make  a  noteworthy 
book."  Professor  Palmer  frequently  came  to  Phillips  Place 
to  talk  over  George  Herbert.  It  amused  Dr.  Allen  at  first 
that  Mr.  Palmer  had  captured  Herbert  for  the  Puritans;  but 
afterwards  he  felt  that  he  had  not  given  due  weight  to  the 
Churchman's  standpoint.  Still  he  never  wavered  in  his 
admiration  for  his  friend's  workmanship:  no  other  minor 
poet,  he  said,  ever  received  such  royal  treatment. 

"The  next  great  event,"  he  wrote  to  his  son  in  the  fall, 
"is  the  General  Convention  of  this  Church,  which  meets  in 
Boston  the  first  week  in  October.  It  is  to  be  honoured  by 
the  presence  of  His  Grace,  the  Most  Reverend,  My  Lord 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  All  the  world  is  agog  with 
interest,  and  even  Boston  shows  signs  of  being  a  little 
flurried."  Speaking  of  the  Convention  to  Mr.  Taylor  in 
a  letter  of  October  10,  he  said:  "It  quite  turns  my  poor 
head.  It  has  been  a  round  of  dissipations,  receptions, 
luncheons,    dinners,    and    calls.  ...     I    have    met    the 


BISHOP  OF  RIPON'S  LECTURES  221 

Archbishop  and  was  greatly  pleased,  for  he  paid  me  a 
stunning  compliment  to  the  effect  that  The  Continuity  of 
Christian  Thought  had  been  a  handbook  with  him  for 
twenty  years.  He  said  it  out  loud  as  if  he  were  not  at  all 
ashamed,  and  the  others  gathered  about  and  heard  him 
as  he  proceeded  to  enlarge  on  the  sacred  theme.  Then  I 
met  Harnack,  of  Berlin,  and  I  paid  to  him  immortal 
tribute,  which  quite  overcame  him.  He  drew  himself  up 
and  gave  a  most  profound  acknowledgment.  He  was  also 
kind  enough  to  say  he  knew  of  me,  and  had  asked  to 
meet  me  when  he  came  to  Cambridge.  He  spoke  of  Con- 
tinuity. I  wish  I  could  have  gone  to  St.  Louis  with  him. 
If  things  had  been  otherwise  favourable  I  should  have 
done  so,  but  I  did  not  feel  equal  to  it.  I  have  never  quite 
got  over  that  illness  of  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  ...  I 
lunched  to-day  with  Bishop  Lawrence,  talking  with  the 
Archbishop  and  Bishop  Brent  and  Stetson.  I  met  the 
Bishop  of  Ripon  too,  who  also  spoke  of  The  Continuity." 
When  the  Convention  was  over,  he  wrote:  "We  have 
been  having  a  course  of  lectures  by  the  Bishop  of  Ripon  on 
The  Witness  of  History  to  Christ.  They  produced  a  sen- 
sation at  Harvard  and  ended  in  Sanders  Theatre  with  a 
great  crowd.  I  never  heard  anything  before  so  thor- 
oughly satisfactory,  'soul satisfying,'  as  the  old  Evangelicals 
used  to  say.  I  don't  suppose  we  shall  ever  get  back  again  to 
the  old  Evangelical  type  of  experience,  but  it  looks  as  if  we 
might  get  a  larger  and  truer  one,  containing  the  essence  of 
the  old  but  meeting  the  needs  of  the  spirit  more  fully.  At 
any  rate  the  subject  is  in  the  air.  What  was  surprising 
about  the  Bishop  of  Ripon's  lectures  was  that  they  capti- 
vated those  of  every  school,  High  Church  and  Ritualistic, 
Broad  Church  and  Evangelical,  and  even  Unitarians.  His 
marvellous  oratory  had  much  to  do  with  it  of  course;  but 
it  was  the  oratory  combined  with  the  theme  that  consti- 
tuted the  rare  quality  of  the  lectures.  ...  It  has  been  a 
great  time  in  Boston  these  last  three  weeks.     I  had  con- 


222  WARNING 

siderable  talk  with  the  Archbishop,  who  was  a  most  de- 
lightful personality,  the  perfect  flower  of  English  life  and 
culture.  Ripon  came  close  to  him.  Then  we  had  Here- 
ford, who  is  a  great  radical;  and,  lastly,  Dr.  Sanday  of 
Oxford,  so  different  from  the  others  in  manner  and  form, 
the  simple,  earnest  scholar,  who  is  fighting  in  a  great  battle 
of  which  some  of  our  right  reverend  fathers  know  almost 
nothing." 

In  1904  Mr.  William  V.  Kellen  succeeded  Mr.  Scudder 
as  trustee  of  the  School.  The  better  fortunes  of  the  School 
were  shown  by  the  entry  in  Dr.  Allen's  diary  for  December 
15:  "Map  of  the  Roman  Empire  hung  in  Lecture  Room 
after  waiting  for  it  25  years."  His  boys  were  both  away, 
and  he  ate  his  Christmas  dinner  with  the  Scudders.  And 
so  the  year  of  1904  came  to  an  end  —  a  year  of  frequent 
reminders  that  he  was  unable  to  work  as  in  the  past;  but 
still  happy.  He  loved  his  work.  He  would  record  that 
one  class  seemed  stupid,  and  another  most  satisfactory; 
but  his  geese  were  all  swans  in  the  last  analysis.  "It  has 
been  beautiful,  this  year,"  he  said,  "to  have  the  students 
come  in  so  often."     "Beautiful"  was  his  favourite  word. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CHICAGO 

1905 

IN  spite  of  a  dread  of  the  West  and  a  consciousness  that 
he  must  husband  his  strength,  Dr.  Allen  sent  a  message 
early  in  January  that  he  accepted  an  invitation  to  lecture 
at  the  University  of  Chicago  for  the  summer  term  of  1905. 
The  plain  truth  was  that  for  the  obligations  upon  him  his 
salary  was  insufficient,  and  he  felt  obliged  to  work  through 
the  summer  holiday,  which  he  needed  for  rest.  Then  he 
was  writing  and  rewriting  his  article  on  Professor  Palmer's 
Herbert:  that  was  a  labour  of  friendship,  and  he  could  not 
decline  it.  Even  at  best,  life  was  still  crowded.  But  he 
economized:  when  students  came  to  see  him  in  the  even- 
ings, he  read  to  them  from  the  proof  of  Palmer's  Herbert; 
they  were  elated  to  hear  readings  from  an  important  book 
before  it  came  out;  they  were  enraptured  to  be  taken  into 
Dr.  Allen's  literary  confidence  —  and  meantime  he  himself 
was  making  ready  for  his  article!  He  would  throw  in  a 
few  words  about  the  War  between  Russia  and  Japan,  or 
the  Tucker  murder  case,  at  the  end,  for  the  sake  of  variety 
and  to  give  an  element  of  contemporary  interest. 

February  began  with  an  attack  of  malaria  and  grip  com- 
bined, but  he  stayed  in  for  only  a  few  days.  He  took  this 
opportunity  to  write  to  one  of  his  former  pupils  who  had 
been  offered  the  editorship  of  one  of  the  Church  papers: 
"I  was  much  interested  in  that  proposal  about  the  editor- 
ship of  .     That  you  have  done  the  right  thing  in 

declining  I  am  inclined  to  agree;  but  my  heart  always 

223 


224  CHICAGO 

leaps  at  the  possibilities  of  a  great  editor,  as  among  the 
great  opportunities  for  influencing  the  world.  I  should 
have  liked  to  be  a  great  editor.  I  got  a  taste  for  the  thing 
when  I  was  editor  of  The  Western  Episcopalian.  Then  for 
a  couple  of  years  in  the  early  '70's  I  had  charge  of  The 
Christian  Witness.  I  then  became  aware  that  if  anything 
was  fitly  said  it  was  caught  up  and  repeated  everywhere 
without  regard  to  party  lines.  What  the  world  needs  and 
craves  is  the  truth,  no  matter  from  what  source  it  comes. 
And  there  are  so  many  dark  places,  so  much  in  life  and 
institutions,  about  which  no  one  thinks  of  probing  or 
asking  questions.  Godkin  was  a  great  editor  in  his  way, 
and  for  a  time  had  immense  influence,  but  he  lost  it  before 
he  died.  He  did  not  expand  himself  as  the  years  went  on, 
but  grew  more  intense  in  a  narrowing  sphere.  He  failed  to 
see  how  things  were  going.  He  could  not  lead  therefore: 
the  world  grew  a  little  tired  of  him.  .  .  .  All  this  is  a  propos 
of  the  proposal  made  to  you.  But  the  subject  is  a  large 
one  and  I  shall  drop  it. 

"I  have  been  impressed  with  the  second  volume  of 
Creighton's  Life.  He  had  great  insight  into  things  and 
rare  power  of  direct  statement,  great  knowledge  of  life, 
manliness  of  character  —  of  the  English  type  of  course, 
and  that  means  striking  defects  —  an  Aristotelian  through 
and  through.     But  it  is  all  most  interesting. 

"I  seem  to  note  the  shallows  of  which  he  is  not  aware, 
and  it  is  because  of  these  that  he  never  could  have  become 
anything  like  a  universal  bishop.  There  is  a  striking 
combination  of  profound  depths  with  commonplace  con- 
ventionalities —  so  many  things  of  which  he  never  in- 
quired the  reasons,  assumed  as  true  because  they  were  in 
the  air  when  he  was  a  young  man,  conclusions  assumed 
at  an  impressible  moment  which  became  identified  with 
established  facts.  He  never  had  any  adequate  training 
in  theology,  and  of  the  history  of  theology  he  was  for  the 
most   part   ignorant.    He  had  a  specialty  in  European 


CREIGHTON  225 

history  from  the  14th  to  the  16th  century,  and  from  that 
point  of  view  he  judged  the  world.  Of  what  went  before 
or  came  after  he  had  only  the  cursory  knowledge  of  the 
average  man.  It  has  always  puzzled  me  that  he  could 
have  written  his  history  from  the  papal  outlook,  which  made, 
of  course,  the  Reformation  and  movements  of  reform  seem 
incidental  to  an  established  and  permanent  order.  Hence 
he  could  not  explain  Martin  Luther  and  he  lamented  and 
groaned  over  his  task  of  portraying  him.  Indeed  Luther 
and  the  Reformation  appeared  to  him  in  the  same  relative 
light  as  did  Christianity  and  the  Church  to  Gibbon  in  writ- 
ing the  history  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
You  remember  how  in  the  Memoir  Lord  Acton  was  dis- 
appointed at  the  result  of  the  book,  and  Creighton  couldn't 
understand  why. 

"Yet  he  assumed,  when  he  became  bishop,  the  attitude 
of  one  competent  to  pronounce  final  decisions  on  questions 
reaching  out  into  spheres  where  he  was  ignorant.  His 
assumption  of  Episcopal  authority  is  one  of  the  features 
in  his  career  deserving  study.  He  assumed  for  himself  a 
complete  understanding  of  what  the  Episcopal  functions 
were  without  inquiring  into  history  or  the  working  of  insti- 
tutions. His  wearing  of  the  mitre  and  cope,  which  had 
passed  into  disuse  since  the  Reformation,  is  one  of  the 
puzzling  contradictions  in  a  man  who  was  so  sane  and 
sensible.  It  stood  with  him  for  love  of  pomp  and  show, 
and  also  for  the  enforcement  of  discipline  and  authority. 
But  I  don't  see  why  he  should  have  objected  to  incense  as 
he  did.  He  said  exquisite  things  about  the  Sacraments, 
forcible  and  spiritual,  but  he  also  admitted  his  conviction 
of  a  Presence  in  the  elements.  His  going  to  Russia  means 
much,  and  his  subsequent  study  of  the  Russian  Liturgy 
gave  him  light,  but  it  all  came  rather  too  late. 

"The  point  at  which  I  stuck  most  was  his  solemn  asser- 
tion that  no  priest  was  competent  or  had  any  right  to 
speak  for  the  Church  of  England:  that  belonged  only  to 
16 


226  CHICAGO 

the  bishops.  This  was  one  of  his  assumptions,  for  which 
he  knew  no  reasons  and  gave  none.  If  there  is  any  ground 
for  it,  it  must  be  the  Episcopal  vow  to  defend  the  Faith, 
taken  in  ordination.  But  the  same  vow  is  also  taken  by 
the  Presbyter  in  the  same  words.  In  this  respect  the 
English  Church  differs  from  the  Greek  and  Roman.  It 
retained  the  Episcopate,  but  by  one  great  stroke  elevated 
the  Presbyterate,  emancipating  it  from  blind  subjection  and 
giving  it  equal  opportunity  with  the  Episcopate.  If  the 
Church  of  England  could  have  carried  out  this  principle, 
there  would  have  been  no  Presbyterian  Church.  .  .  .  Had 
Creighton  lived  for  twenty  years  longer  I  doubt  if  his 
influence  would  have  strengthened  the  Church. 

"When  he  was  in  this  country,  I  once  took  him  for  a 
long  walk,  and  had  a  talk  of  several  hours.  He  was  'para- 
doxical,' but  very  interesting.  He  said  that  he  did  not 
object  to  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory  as  Pusey  revived  it,  that 
it  was  in  harmony  with  the  idea  of  progressive  stages  of  life. 
But  when  I  dwelt  on  exactly  what  purgatory  was  in  the 
mediaeval  and  the  Puseyite  conception,  he  rather  backed 
off,  and  didn't  want  it.  He  did  not  like  America  and  was 
a  bit  contemptuous,  but  did  his  best  to  conceal  it.  He 
upheld  the  national  idea  of  the  English  Church,  but  did 
not  see  how  the  American  Church  could  adopt  that  basis. 
He  was  a  genuine  Anglican." 

As  he  worked  on  with  the  Herbert,  his  opinion  of  Her- 
bert's ability  decreased  as  his  respect  for  his  commentator 
grew.  "Herbert  strikes  me  as  a  rough  versifier,  sacrificing 
rhyme  and  rhythm  to  his  conceits.  He  jolts  over  a  rough 
road.  .  .  .  Herbert  does  not  appear  strong  or  great.  .  .  . 
Palmer  called  in  the  evening,  and  was  inspiring  as  usual 
over  his  work." 

In  his  diary  under  March  8,  being  Ash-Wednesday,  he 
wrote:  "Ash- Wednesday  comes  altogether  too  late  this 
year,  and  that  because  of  a  stupid  ecclesiastical  arrange- 
ment.    If  there  were  Christian  unity  and  there  could  be 


CHICAGO  LECTURES  AND  PRAGMATISM    227 

a  council  of  the  whole  Church,  it  could  be  improved." 
He  was  still  sensitive  to  weather:  Lent  and  a  certain  kind 
of  weather,  to  his  mind,  belonged  together. 

He  finished  his  lectures  for  the  School  year  on  May  26. 
"  Finishing  with  the  Seniors  is  always  a  little  solemn,"  he 
said  as  he  recorded  his  last  lecture  to  them.  Better  than 
for  two  years,  he  spoke  of  his  daily  walks,  "I  can  do  three 
miles  now  without  the  symptoms  of  two  years  ago."  At 
the  Alumni  Dinner,  June  6,  he  dwelt  upon  the  history  of 
the  School,  and  said  grateful  words  of  Dean  Hodges,  who 
had  just  declined  a  call  to  Leland  Stanford  University. 

"The  students,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor,  after  begin- 
ning his  lectures  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  "seem  to  be 
interested,  and  listen  with  a  keenness  which  is  sometimes 
too  intense.  My  impression  is  that  they  enjoy  it,  but  on 
the  other  hand  it  is  so  different  from  what  they  are  accus- 
tomed to,  that  it  confuses  some  of  them.  The  class  room 
fills  up  with  others  who  come  in,  and  looks  rather  crowded. 
I  sit  in  my  chair  and  talk  rapidly,  without  notes,  for  two 
successive  hours."  In  his  diary,  under  August  10,  he  wrote : 
"Young  Roman  Catholic  girl  asks  about  Matt.  xvi.  18. 
She  ought  not  to  have  taken  the  course." 

Again  he  reported  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Taylor:  "This  is  a 
tremendous  city,  and  everybody  I  meet  is  simply  obsessed 
with  the  idea  of  Chicago.  They  will  talk  about  it  at  the 
slightest  hint;  they  can't  forget  it;  they  seem  to  be  think- 
ing about  it  all  the  time.  ...  I  am  through  three  weeks 
of  my  job,  and  have  two  more.  It  is  harder  than  I 
expected.  My  old  work  has  to  be  reconstructed  and  con- 
densed, so  that  I  spend  each  day  getting  ready  for  the  next. 
The  more  successful  the  lectures  are  the  more  they  take 
out  of  me.  And  they  are  successful:  there  is  no  doubt, 
I  think,  about  that.  I  never  saw  men  more  interested.  .  .  . 
The  circular  you  send  interests  me.  It  shows  how  quickly 
speculative  ideas  get   translated  into  practical  rules.     I 


228  CHICAGO 

will  send  you  the  book  on  Pragmatism,  as  soon  as  I  can 
recall  the  author  and  the  title.  William  James,  one  of  its 
exponents,  has  just  been  giving  a  course  of  lectures  here 
on  the  subject.  I  was  impressed  with  the  way  you  re- 
ceived my  meagre  account  of  it:  so  was  I  moved  when  I 
first  heard  of  it.  I  accepted  it  at  once  on  the  mere  sugges- 
tion, and  have  been  applying  it  ever  since  in  lecturing.  I 
have  one  advantage  in  the  scope  of  illustration.  It  un- 
locks the  history.  .  .  . 

"They  are  all  alive  in  the  subject  of  New  Testament 
criticism  out  here.  They  have  two  able  scholars,  Dr. 
Burton  and  Shailer  Matthews,  who  are  publishing  a  good 
deal  of  independent  advanced  work.  Matthews  I  like 
extremely,  and  hob-nob  with  him  often.  The  club  life  is 
not  without  its  charm.  It  is  quite  delightful  to  go  down 
at  breakfast  and  join  one  of  these  interesting  men  who  know 
all  about  your  own  subject,  and  will  talk,  or  let  you  talk, 
as  the  case  may  be.  We  linger  long  sometimes  at  the 
dinner  table. 

"We  are  in  the  South  side  of  Chicago,  where  the  Uni- 
versity has  a  magnificent  site  of  hundreds  of  acres  near 
where  the  World's  Fair  was  held  in  1893.  But  I  find  it  is 
regarded  as  a  mistake  that  the  University  was  not  planted 
on  the  North  side.  It  is  something  as  if,  to  compare  small 
things  with  great,  the  Episcopal  Theological  School  had 
been  placed  in  Cambridgeport.  Of  course  the  Port  part 
of  Cambridge  is  composed  of  the  most  excellent  people, 
among  whom  it  would  be  an  honour  to  dwell,  etc.  So  the 
people  of  the  North  side  have  that  old  feeling  which  existed 
way  back  in  New  Testament  times  —  the  doubt  whether 
any  highest  good  can  come  out  of  the  South  side.  They 
send  their  sons  to  Harvard.  But  they  are  not  missed 
among  the  5000  or  more  students  here." 

Writing  from  Cambridge,  in  September  he  said:  "I 
have  felt  useless  for  any  work.  Some  of  my  activity  at 
Chicago  was  galvanized.  ...     I  wish  I  could  define  to 


ADVICE  TO  A  TEACHER  229 

myself  what  is  the  difference  between  Chicago  and  Boston, 
or  West  and  East.  Less  form,  for  one  thing,  and  less 
reserve.  Not  so  much  care  for  details,  or  for  accuracy. 
In  some  respects  a  simpler,  more  unsophisticated  order, 
without  the  cosmopolitan  touch  —  as  in  coeducation.  I 
have  come  back  with  a  good  deal  to  think  over  and  digest. 
I  am  glad  I  went:  I  am  glad  I  am  home  again.  ...  I 
have  not  become  a  Baptist.  Don't  circulate  that  story,  for 
there  is  no  knowing  what  may  happen  if  you  do.  But  I 
have  been  in  the  atmosphere  of  'tainted  money,'  which,  I 
suppose,  is  worse.  If  my  Churchmanship  is  in  the  slightest 
degree  damaged,  you  must  make  every  effort  to  repair  it." 

"You  must  not  feel  frightened  and  inadequate,"  he  said 
to  a  pupil  beginning  to  teach,  "at  least  not  more  than 
is  necessary  to  stimulate  to  good  work.  I  have  never  got 
over  that  feeling  when  I  have  anything  to  do,  even  my 
routine  work.  I  suppose  it  to  be  a  healthy  accompaniment, 
trying  as  it  is.  And  it  is  a  great  thing  also  to  be  learning 
from  day  to  day,  without  being  too  far  ahead  of  those  you 
are  teaching.  You  see  I  have  myself  been  a  teacher. 
You  have  every  requisite  for  a  successful  teacher  —  ability, 
interest,  enthusiasm  —  but  I  would  keep  just  a  little  of 
that  wholesome  fright,  the  stage  nervousness  of  every 
great  actor." 

At  the  end  of  a  November  letter  to  a  friend,  he  said: 
"Well,  what  interests  me  is  the  new  age  we  are  entering. 
I  watch  movements  and  men,  and  myself  particularly, 
with  reference  to  it.  If  we  can  hang  to  the  past  and  fuse 
it  with  the  future,  it  will  be  all  right.  There  are  those  who 
will  not;  and  there  comes  the  difficulty.  Half  the  world 
is  moved  by  the  logic  of  history;  the  other  half  seeks  to 
escape  it." 

Just  before  Christmas  he  received  a  book  from  Bishop 
Brent.  "I  think  it  quite  fine,"  he  said.  "There  is  a  vein 
of  poetry  in  him."  During  the  General  Convention, 
Bishop  Brent  had  written  to  him  telling  of  his  intention 


23o  CHICAGO 

to  give  the  Paddock  Lectures  on  The  Incarnation  and 
Nationality;  and  asking  for  a  chance  to  talk  with  him 
about  various  historical  aspects  of  his  subject.  They  did 
not  see  each  other  often,  but  Dr.  Allen  felt  a  keen  interest 
in  the  Bishop  which  grew  to  affection. 

The  next  week  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor:  "I  met  William 
James  the  other  day  and  told  him  how  much  I  liked  Schiller 
and  his  Humanism.  He  was  greatly  pleased,  so  he  said; 
for  many  of  the  critics  had  jumped  on  it.  Santayana 
slammed  the  book  shut,  and  said  he  never  should  look  into 
it  again.  But  James  thinks  that  it  is  a  very  important  book, 
apart  from  some  superficial  and  evident  defects,  and  that 
Schiller  is  one  of  the  coming  men.  The  trouble  with  Schiller 
is  the  difficulty  he  finds  in  demonstrating  his  thesis.  He 
needs  no  demonstration,  but  only  application,  especially 
in  history  —  where  Schiller  is  not  at  home.  But  I  am 
glad  you  like  it.     One  gets  something  from  it." 

The  same  day  he  wrote  to  his  son:  "You  must  be  very 
careful  to  show  no  depression,  and  if  possible  feel  none,  or 
rather  throw  it  off.  Put  on  a  cheerful  face.  ...  It  never 
does  to  show  that  we  are  down.  The  world  moves  pain- 
fully, and  is  grateful  to  the  man  who  cheers  it  up.  If  we 
could  all  go  into  the  cheering-up  business,  it  would  be  a 
much  happier  world."  How  we  see  him  in  those  words; 
for  he  wrote  cheering  letters  to  men  who  feared  themselves 
failures,  and  they  began  anew  in  the  light  of  his  joy.  And 
those  who  heard  his  quiet  laughter  in  the  old  study  at 
Phillips  Place,  with  his  whimsical  commentary  on  the  doings 
of  Ritualists  and  Unitarians,  Russians  and  Italians,  little 
dreamed  of  the  burdens  that  weighed  upon  his  heart.  He 
knew  that  the  world  was  grateful  to  the  man  who  tried  to 
cheer  it  up,  and  he  did  his  Christian  best  to  be  light-hearted. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   APPEAL    FOR    HELP 

1906 

THE  essay  for  The  Atlantic  on  Palmer's  Herbert  appeared 
in  January,  1906.  "Mr.  Palmer  is  right,"  Dr. 
Allen  said,  in  giving  his  final  decision  on  Herbert's  Church- 
manship, "in  tracing  a  certain  Puritan  affiliation  in  Herbert, 
but  this  does  not  make  him  any  the  less  a  representative  of 
High  Anglicanism.  There  is  a  type  of  Anglican  High 
Churchmanship,  which  is  secular  in  its  tone,  and  which, 
as  in  the  Caroline  Age,  sought  to  strengthen  the  Church  by 
an  alliance  with  the  crown.  But  there  is  another  type, 
taking  an  ascetic  view  of  life,  disowning  the  State  or  seek- 
ing strength  by  separation  from  the  State,  and  claiming  to 
be  superior  to  all  civil  relationships.  This  latter  type, 
which  became  so  prevalent  in  the  last  century,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  Oxford  Movement,  found  its  precursor  in 
Ferrar  of  Little  Gidding  and  in  George  Herbert,  his  inti- 
mate friend.  Such  kindred  spirits  in  the  seventeenth 
century  might  have  recognized  Keble  in  the  nineteenth 
as  having  a  common  ideal.  For  the  essence  of  this  latter 
kind  of  High  Churchmanship  is  identical  with  the  spirit  of 
Puritanism.  Augustine  and  Hildebrand,  Calvin  and  Knox, 
Newman,  Pusey,  and  Liddon  are  at  one  in  the  dualism  they 
assert  between  God  and  the  world,  in  the  view  that  religion 
consists  in  renunciation,  rather  than  in  consecration,  of 
the  world." 

In  February  he  wrote  to  a  pupil:  "I  have  been  trying 
to  put  in  form  a  lecture  for  the  Union  Seminary  on  "  Faith 

231 


232  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

and  Tradition."  The  point  which  I  try  to  make  is  that  a 
religion  consists  of  two  forces,  and  I  think  both  divinely 
inspired,  using  the  term  inspiration  in  a  large  way.  There 
is  (i)  the  appeal  —  the  revelation,  historic  fact,  etc.,  as  in 
the  Synoptics ;  and  (2)  the  response  of  humanity  —  St. 
Paul,  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Christian  Tradition,  the  Christ 
of  Nicaea,  and  the  whole  history  of  the  Church. 

"I  think  that  Loisy  has  yielded  too  much  in  regard  to 
the  first,  does  not  feel  sure  enough  of  the  original  appeal  and 
its  historic  validity,  nor  see  within  it  clearly  enough  the 
manifest  germs  which  explain  the  later  response.  Hence 
he  takes  too  much  on  trust  as  the  outgrowth  of  the  influence 
of  a  mysterious  unknown,  possibly  unknowable,  personality. 
And,  secondly,  he  is  not  familiar  enough  with  the  later 
history  of  the  Church  to  seize  its  strong  points.  His 
inability  to  include  the  Protestant  movement  makes  him 
one-sided.  But  on  the  other  hand  he  has  got  hold  of  a 
mighty  truth,  which  some  one  will  yet  work  out.  Alto- 
gether I  like  his  work,  or  rather  his  position,  better  than 
Harnack's.  But  the  thing  to  be  done  is  to  bring  the  two 
attitudes  together  in  organic  relationship.  Harnack  is  too 
much  under  extreme  Protestant  influence  —  I  should  say 
roughly,  Calvinistic  —  to  get  that  profound  reverence  for 
the  tradition  which  inspires  Loisy.  You  have  the  two 
ideas  clearly  before  you  in  your  scheme. 

"It  is  not  necessary  to  throw  off  any  of  the  tradition, 
but  rather  to  interpret,  in  order  to  get  the  Christ  principle, 
or  idea  which  it  embodied.  It  may  be  so  presented  as 
to  have  always  a  positive  value,  instead  of  this  endless 
depreciation  and  negative  criticism. 

"So  the  Church  becomes  a  commentary  on  the  person- 
ality of  Christ,  and  one  may  even  construct  that  personality 
out  of  the  Church's  consciousness,  with  a  result  throwing 
light  and  giving  confirmation  to  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels. 

"Sanday  is  good,  and  safe  —  in  the  best  sense.  He  sees 
clearly  the  weakness  of  German  criticism,  its  too  intense 


FAITH  AND  TRADITION  233 

subjectivity.  He  recognizes  a  supernatural  element  in  the 
process  which  the  Germans  balk  at.  I  think  we  must 
reach  this  supernatural  potency  as  a  result,  if  we  do  not 
posit  it  from  the  start. 

"I  wish  I  could  talk  the  whole  question  over  with  you,  for 
there  is  too  much  to  be  said  in  a  letter.  .  .  .  How  we  are 
haunted  still  by  that  old  Docetism.  We  can  understand 
it  better  to-day,  because  the  same  conditions  confront  us  — 
the  same,  yet  greatly  changed." 

A  fortnight  later  he  read  his  lecture  on  "  Faith  and  Tra- 
dition" at  the  Union  Seminary  in  New  York.  It  is  so 
important  a  summary  of  his  historical  convictions  at  this 
time  that  a  few  quotations  from  it  must  be  given: 

"No  greater  misapprehension  of  the  Nicene  doctrine  can  be 
made  than  to  think  of  it  as  the  result  of  a  mere  dialectic  pro- 
cess. .  .  .  Beneath  the  dialectic,  the  logic,  the  philosophy, 
ran  the  life-blood  of  the  Church.  It  is  the  heart  of  the  Church, 
not  merely  its  intellect,  which  is  here  responding  to  the  love  of 
Christ.  The  dialectic  was  forgotten  before  a  hundred  years  had 
passed  away,  but  the  faith  survived  in  the  simple  conviction 
that  Christ  was  the  co-eternal,  coequal  Son  of  the  Father. 
.  .  .  The  personality  of  Jesus,  and  not  His  doctrine  alone  or 
taken  by  itself,  has  been  set  through  the  ages,  and  still  to-day 
is  set  for  the  rising  again  of  many.  .  .  . 

"The  Crusades  were  a  great  thank-offering  for  the  Redemp- 
tion, an  effort,  crude  indeed,  on  the  part  of  plain  and  simple  souls 
to  show  honour  to  the  Christ.  ...  To  imitate  the  life  of 
Christ  was  the  ideal  of  monasticism,  which  culminated  in  the 
beautiful  career  of  St.  Francis.  .  .  . 

"The  organization  of  the  Church  was  to  its  life  and  doctrine 
what  the  form  of  poetry  is  to  the  excited  emotion  of  the  poet. 
It  restrained  and  checked  the  Christian  enthusiasm,  which 
might  otherwise  have  run  riot  and  defeated  its  own  end.  To- 
day, as  always,  organization  serves  a  constituent  purpose  in 
religion,  in  keeping  the  rhythm  and  balance  of  things,  in  promot- 
ing the  consciousness  of  a  sane,  established,  organic  order  of  the 
world.    The  varieties  of  religious  experience  will  not  lead  up 


234  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

to  the  reality  of  the  religious  life,  unless  supplemented  by  an 
organic  order,  which  prevents  the  abnormal  tendency  of  human 
souls  from  gaining  the  ascendancy.  Religion  in  itself  is  not 
necessarily  a  good  thing,  or  to  be  desired.  It  may  be  an  evil. 
Our  aspiration  is  for  the  increase  of  true  religion.  .  .  . 

"Imperfect,  weak,  and  halting  must  be  our  religion,  if  while 
we  get  the  Christ  who  works  within,  we  lose  the  Christ  who 
works  without.  There  are  great  beliefs  that  have  helped  our 
race  as  a  whole  which  we  need  somehow  to  adjust  with  our 
individual  experience.  In  our  attempt  at  the  evaluation  of  the 
ancient  creeds,  it  should  be  taken  into  consideration  that  they 
have  been  the  inspiration  by  which  the  Church  has  made  its 
greatest  conquests  in  the  past  —  conquests  for  civilization  as 
well  as  for  religion.  We  are  neglecting  sources  of  strength  for 
the  work  before  us,  if  we  reject  tradition  and  see  no  value  in 
ancient  formulas,  because  we  cannot  relate  them  to  an  inward 
personal  experience." 

During  the  spring  Dr.  Allen  worked  upon  the  abridged 
Life  of  Brooks.  His  sister  had  a  long  convalescence,  which 
she  spent  at  Phillips  Place,  Mrs.  Henry  Allen  kindly  coming 
to  care  for  her.  He  wrote  constantly  of  his  gratitude  for 
this  sisterly  act.  For  the  sake  of  these  two  sisters,  more 
rarely  than  ever  was  he  away  for  an  evening,  often  omit- 
ting even  his  beloved  Clericus.  But  the  spring  was  full  of 
noise  from  without.  A  paper  based  upon  an  English 
manifesto  of  liberty  in  the  Church  had  been  sent  out 
with  many  good  names  appended,  Dr.  Allen's  among  them. 
Little  attention  was  paid  to  this:  it  neither  helped  nor 
hindered  the  causes  the  signers  had  at  heart.  Dr  Allen 
had  small  faith  in  such  things.  But  the  real  conflict  arose 
in  the  attack  of  a  curate  upon  his  rector's  orthodoxy  in 
Rochester,  New  York.  Dr.  Crapsey,  formerly  a  very  High 
Churchman,  had  spoken  loosely  of  our  Lord's  divinity; 
and,  being  accused  of  heresy,  felt  obliged  to  make  his 
hints  and  doubts  into  formal  denials.  He  had  further 
published  a  book;  the  Diocese  of  Western  New  York,  with 


A  HERESY  TRIAL  235 

a  too  ready  will,  rushed  to  a  heresy  trial;  and  Dr.  Crapsey 
seemed  to  many  a  martyr.  Sensitive  men  searched  their 
hearts  to  see  if  they  ought  not  to  subject  themselves  to 
similar  trials.  Men  old  and  young  began  to  seek  the 
quiet  of  Dr.  Allen's  study  for  advice,  and  among  them  came 
Dr.  Crapsey  himself,  who  had  become  excited  and  militant. 

Dr.  Allen  felt  from  the  first  that  a  trial  could  end  in  only 
one  way.  His  interest  was  not  in  Dr.  Crapsey,  but  in  the 
truth,  lest  in  zeal  for  historical  doctrine,  over-emphasis  on 
one  side  should  lead  to  the  denial  of  counter  truths  equally 
vital.  He  was  also  concerned  for  men  who  really  did  not 
stand  at  all  with  Dr.  Crapsey,  but  who  felt  moved  by 
chivalry  to  range  themselves  at  his  side  in  his  trouble. 
Some  of  these  were  connected  with  the  School,  and  he  was 
jealous  for  the  School's  position  for  candour  and  balance 
in  days  of  excitement.  His  preference  was  to  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  trial.  He  refused  to  go  to  it.  But,  against 
all  his  inclinations,  he  wrote  hurriedly  a  brief  for  Dr. 
Crapsey's  counsel,  E.  M.  Shepard,  Esq.,  and  Mr.  Shepard 
made  this  brief  the  basis  of  his  defence.  Dr.  Crapsey  was 
condemned,  and  his  case  was  carried  over  to  the  court  of 
appeals.  Dr.  Allen  was  disturbed  when  he  learned  that 
the  brief  had  been  passed  about  at  Batavia,  and  many 
read  it.  Thereupon  requests  began  to  come  for  its 
publication. 

"I  am  reluctant,"  answered  Dr.  Allen,  "to  enter  into 
controversy,  and  I  am  pretty  sure  such  an  effort  on  my 
part  would  mean  controversy  to  be  followed  up.     It  was 

only  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of that  I  was  induced 

to  write  the  notes.  On  the  other  hand  I  recognize  that 
the  time  calls  for  some  statement  on  the  subject;  the 
Church  needs  it;  and  young  men  especially,  either  in  the 
ministry  or  thinking  of  it,  ought  to  be  in  possession  of  a 
clear  statement  of  the  issue. 

"I  think  the  court  was  entitled,  in  consequence  of  his 
confession,  to  condemn  Mr.  Crapsey,  as  denying  an  historic 


236  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

fact  which  is  embodied  in  the  creeds  and  formularies.  But 
when  they  went  further  and  condemned  him  for  denying 
the  doctrines  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Trinity,  on  the 
ground  that  these  doctrines  are  based  on  the  Virgin  Birth, 
they  went  beyond  the  evidence,  and  condemn  by  implica- 
tion the  very  large  body  of  clergy  and  laity  who  do  not 
regard  these  doctrines  as  involved  in  the  Virgin  Birth. 
The  evidence  here  is  overwhelming  against  the  court's 
decision,  which  rested  upon  the  theory  of  a  school  within 
the  Church,  and  that  not  the  best  accredited  in  the  history 
of  theology." 

Dr.  Allen  then  wrote  to  a  former  pupil:  "I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  when  a  man  denies  the  Virgin  Birth,  it 
has  become  a  case  in  pathology  rather  than  in  theology. 
And  I  regret  very  much  that  the  clergy  should  have  been 
in  such  evidence  at  the  trial.  Huxley  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
and  others  who  represent  science  in  its  more  spiritual 
aspects,  do  not,  as  I  understand  them,  maintain  that  the 
Virgin  Birth  is  impossible.  What  they  ask  for  is  the  evi- 
dence. But  Dr.  Crapsey,  as  I  understand  him,  holds  that 
it  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  the  case  —  the  theologian 
rushing  in  where  the  scientist  fears  to  tread.  Under  such 
circumstances,  the  Church  being  what  it  is,  I  don't  see  how 
the  result  could  have  been  other  than  condemnation.  These 
other  clergymen  should  never  have  identified  their  case 
with  his.  None  of  them  has  gene  so  far,  and  it  is  practical 
good  sense  as  well  as  sound  courage  which  holds  them  back. 
But  Crapsey  thinks  we  are  all  cowards.  The  Unitarian 
Register  has  been  reading  us  a  lesson  on  the  right  and  hon- 
est use  of  creeds.  It  reminds  one  of  the  fox  which  had  lost 
its  tail  (whom  the  Unitarians  resemble  in  being  a  body 
without  a  creed).  But  when  the  tailless  fox  undertakes 
to  instruct  those  who  retain  their  tails  as  to  how  they  are 
to  use  them,  it  becomes  comical." 

The  next  day  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  " came  out 

to-day  in  a  sermon  as  a  Crapseyite  —  which  ends   I  fear 


ENGLISH  AND  GERMAN  THEOLOGY      237 

his  influence.  .  .  .  Crapsey  I  regard  as  a  tjnitarian,  and  I 
do  not  believe  the  Church  will  stand  it,  or  ought  to  stand  it. 
It  would  be  a  great  declension  from  its  high  position." 

To  one  who  was  largely  in  sympathy  with  Dr.  Crapsey, 
he  wrote,  May  29:  "Now,  please,  are  you  not  exaggerating 
a  little  when  you  speak  of as  you  do?  Or  is  that  in- 
tended for  rhetoric  only?  You  speak  of  him  as  if  with  his 
great  mind  and  by  his  thorough  research  into  such  mat- 
ters, he  had  been  enabled  to  forecast  a  conclusion,  in  whose 
presence  it  became  us,  lesser  mortals,  to  be  modest  and 

silent.  ...     In  my  humble  judgment knows  nothing 

about  it,  and  is  carried  away  by  a  passing  emotion  or  the 
latest  sciolism.  ...  I  demur  when  he  is  placed  upon  a 
pedestal  to  be  revered,  or  suggested  as  a  model  to  be 
followed. 

"We  are  in  the  beginning  of  a  controversy,  which  it  may 
take  another  generation  to  bring  to  its  conclusion.  We 
must  be  patient  and  willing  to  wait,  with  an  open  mind, 
listening  to  what  can  be  said  on  both  sides,  and  especially 
on  the  conservative  side,  where  there  is  much  to  be  said, 
which  has  not  yet  been  said. 

"The  English  are  not  going  to  follow  the  Germans,  but 
will  determine  this  issue  in  their  own  way;  they  have  a 
great  historic  Church  to  carry  with  them,  and  the  Germans 
have  no  baggage,  lightly  equipped  for  movement  in  the 
world  of  religious  speculation.  The  English  have  a  wor- 
ship and  a  religion  to  look  after  and  maintain,  as  well  as  a 
Church.     With  the  Germans  religion  consists  in  thinking." 

The  work  immediately  before  him  was  the  preparation 
of  four  lectures  for  the  Albany  Cathedral  Summer  School 
of  Theology.  He  had  promised  in  midwinter  to  give  the 
lectures,  and  now,  with  a  month  before  him,  he  felt  unwilling 
to  give  old  lectures;  so  he  fell  to  work  upon  new  ones. 

One  hard  problem  of  this  June  of  1906  was  the  question 
whether  his  older  son  should  accept  a  position  in  Atlanta. 
It  meant  much  to  him  to  have  his  son  as  near  as  Schenec- 


238  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

tady.  "You  have  been,"  he  said,  "a  sort  of  mainstay  and 
support  to  us  —  Jack  and  me  —  and  it  will  give  a  feeling 
of  loneliness,  to  say  the  least,  when  you  are  beyond  call." 
And  then  he  referred  to  certain  troubles  his  son  had  en- 
countered: "We  all  have  these  annoyances,  be  they  less  or 
greater,  and  they  are  sent  by  fortune,  I  suppose,  not  by 
God,  for  He  allows  them,  in  order  to  put  a  man  to  the  test. 
God  does  not,  I  take  it,  send  trouble  to  us,  but  He  permits 
it  for  our  trial,  in  order  that,  keeping  our  faith,  we  may 
come  out  of  the  trial  stronger  and  purer  and  better  men." 

The  Albany  lectures  were  given  the  last  week  in  June  on 
The  Church  and  State  in  Conflict,  The  Creeds,  The  Trinity, 
and  The  Sacraments.  To  his  more  recent  pupils  he  seemed 
less  than  in  the  School  class  room,  somewhat  restrained 
and  hampered.  But  Dr.  Nash,  who  was  also  one  of  the 
lecturers  and  who  had  not  heard  him  lecture  since  his 
student  days,  twenty-five  years  before,  remarked  after 
one  of  the  lectures  that  he  had  forgotten  how  wonderful 
Dr.  Allen  was. 

He  returned  to  Cambridge  at  once  to  meet  the  demand 
of  the  Macmillans  for  a  book  on  the  present  theological 
unrest  in  the  Church.  He  faced  this  task  reluctantly. 
He  was  not  fitted  for  controversy.  His  hope  was  to  give 
help  to  troubled  minds,  and  with  that  hope  in  view  he 
sacrificed  another  summer,  which  he  needed  more  than  ever 
for  rest.  All  the  year  he  had  referred  his  frequent  illnesses 
to  the  hard  work  at  Chicago  the  previous  summer.  He 
knew  quite  what  he  was  doing  when  he  worked  through 
the  hot  Cambridge  days,  in  order  to  meet  the  demands  of 
men  old  and  young  who  appealed  to  him  for  some  solution. 

1 '  Thank  you , "  he  wrote  in  July, ' '  for  giving  me  the  reading 

of  Mr. 's  letter.     As  I  see  his  attitude,  it  is  very  evident 

that  only  by  omitting  or  interpreting  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  in  a  false  sense,  can  he  reach  what  he  calls  the 
1  Catholic '  sense  of  the  creeds.  When  the  vow  was  imposed 
of  holding  the  doctrine  'as  this  Church  hath  received  the 


PSEUDO-CATHOLICITY  239 

same,'  I  am  sure  the  authors  of  our  formularies  had  in 
view  the  Articles,  as  showing  how  this  Church  received  the 
Faith,  in  contradistinction  from  the  Roman  Church,  or  the 
'Catholic'  sense  of  the  Faith.     This  is  evident  enough  from 
the  fact  that  down  to  our  own  day  the  English  Church 
required  subscription  to  the  Articles  from  every  member  of 
the  two  Universities  and  from  every  incumbent  of  a  bene- 
fice, but  she  never  asked  for  subscription  to  the  creeds,  nor 
does  the  phrase,  'Catholic  sense  of  the  creeds,'  occur  in  her 
formularies.     Father  Newman  in  his  earlier  Anglican  days 
said  to  Copeland,  'Could  you  sign  the  Thirty-nine  Articles? 
I  could  not.'     That  was  after  he  had  already  signed  them. 
And  not  many  years  later  he  undertook  the  task  of  imposing 
the  sense  of  the  Roman  definitions  of  Trent  on  the  Articles. 
England  was  aghast  at  the  dishonesty  of  his  position,  and 
he  was  practically  forced  out  of  the  Church.     It  is  only  by 
being  untrue  to  the  'doctrine  as  this  Church  hath  received 
the  same'  that  Mr.  — • —  and  other  like-minded  gentlemen 
are  able  to  remain  in  the  Church,  and  to  denounce  their 
brethren,  more  truly  adherents  of    the    doctrine  of    this 
Church    than    themselves,    as    'traitors    to    God.'     That 
seems  to  me    the  language  of  a  bigot,  of  a   maddened 
zealot,  of  a  fanatic  who  places  what  he  is  pleased  to  call 
the  'Catholic'  faith  above  charity.     And  he  thinks  he  is 
doing  God  service! 

"There  is  another  curious  thing  about  Mr.  .     By 

some  subjective  process,  familiar  enough,  he  has  reasoned 
himself  into  what  he  calls  'orthodoxy'  or  the  'Catholic 
sense  '  of  the  creeds.  Then  it  pleases  him  'to  objectify'  it, 
to  put  it  above  himself,  as  something  which  he  did  not 
discover,  and  to  demand  that  all  others  shall  receive  it  as 
something  apart  from  subjective  method  or  criticism.  It 
is  the  old  cave,  after  all,  into  which  the  Roman  Church 
retreats  when  she  is  cornered.  She  calls  upon  us  by  the 
exercise  of  private  judgment  to  acknowledge  her  authority 
and  she  seeks  to  commend  her  doctrines  to  our   reason. 


240  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

But  when  we  have  received  them,  she  calls  for  the  abne- 
gation of  private  judgment,  as  involving  possible  treason 

to  the  faith,  and,  I  suppose  she  would  say  with  Mr. , 

'treason  to  God.' 

"What  can  one  say  to  such  an  'unhappy'  man? 

"The  trouble  is  that  the  'liberal'  Churchmen  have 
thrown  away  the  palladium  of  their  liberties,  the  charter 
of  the  freedom  of  a  Christian  man,  when  they  dropped 
The  Articles  of  Religion.  They  laughed  at  them,  they 
sneered  at  them,  they  joined  with  the  'Catholic'  school  in 
rejecting  their  authority.  And  this  same  'unhappy'  Mr. 
(and  his  friends)  is  the  result.  And  now  we  are  con- 
fronted with  '  Catholic '  theology,  and  called  dishonest  and 
traitors  to  God.  We  ought  to  have  seen  that  although  the 
Articles  were  couched  in  a  queer  language,  which  seemed 
as  old-fashioned  as  our  grandmothers'  garb,  there  was  life 
there  and  vitality  and,  above  all,  freedom  from  this  '  Cath- 
olic' theology  which  is  now  masquerading  in  the  Church. 

"Sometimes  I  think  it  is  really  our  friend,  Mr. ,  who 

is  worried  and  panicky,  and  not  we  ourselves.  He  could 
not  use  such  strong  language,  if  he  were  really  secure  in 
his  position.  'Catholicism'  is  on  the  wane,  but  still  has 
power  to  make  mischief,  and  against  that  we  must  fight." 

"Sometimes,"  he  wrote  again,  "I  think  I  must  be  a 
reactionary,  for  my  sympathies  are  with  the  Czar,  rather 
than  with  the  Douma.  How  strange  these  sympathies 
are:  one  cannot  control  or  reverse  them.  I  am  a  great 
believer  in  freedom  as  the  great  end  towards  which  we  are 
moving.  But  I  suppose  my  sympathies  here  are  con- 
trolled by  a  conviction  that  the  Russians  are  not  ready  for 
freedom:  if  the  Douma  had  its  way,  anarchy  would  result, 
and   freedom   would   be   lost." 

The  last  day  of  July,  he  wrote:  "There  is  one  thing  very 
interesting  in  Cambridge,  the  advent  of  these  young  China- 
men. Most  of  them  are  handsome,  they  carry  themselves 
well,  with  refinement  in  manner  and  the  evidence  of  high 


A  BIRTHDAY  LETTER  241 

breeding.  It  makes  one  feel  that  China  has  a  future.  I 
can  understand  as  I  look  at  them  how  dear  old  Pope  Gregory 
the  Great  felt  when  he  saw  the  Anglo-Saxons  at  Rome.  He 
was  eager  to  convert  them,  and  it  gives  me  a  new  interest 
in  our  Mission  in  China  when  I  look  at  these  attractive 
but  pagan  faces." 

In  August  he  wrote  a  birthday  letter  to  a  friend:  "It 
is  one  of  the  advantages  of  the  old  calendar  of  the  saints 
(which  this  Church  has  wisely  discarded)  that  it  gives  a 
standard  of  comparison.  It  enabled  the  late  pope  to  pay 
such  a  tribute  to  his  mother  as  was  never  paid  before, 
putting  her  before  all  the  Saints  and  second  only  in  the 
Calendar:  'We  also  implore  as  mediators  the  Blessed  Virgin 
Mary,  Mother  of  God,  and  our  own  much  beloved  mother, 
and  that  legion  of  Saints  whom  in  our  life  we  venerated.' 
It  is  something  after  all  to  have  any  human  being  say  and 
think  such  things  of  us  —  whatever  we  may  think  of  our- 
selves. When  men  grew  uncertain  about  God's  forgiveness, 
it  was  something  to  have  a  mortal  man  in  the  name  of  the 
common  humanity  to  say,  Ego  te  absolvo.  And  so  I  say, 
yours  has  been  a  beautiful  life.  It  is  a  time  to  rejoice,  for 
God  now  accepteth  your  work.  The  doctrine  of  the  for- 
giveness of  sins  is  the  essence  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ:  it  is 
the  principle  of  life  whether  we  believe  it  or  not.  It  is 
almost  too  much  to  be  believed,  like  all  the  richest,  rarest 
gifts.  It  is  most  easily  corrupted,  and  therefore  not  to 
be  too  easily  vaunted." 

During  the  summer  a  presbyter  in  the  Diocese  of  South- 
ern Ohio  wrote  a  violent  letter  to  a  Church  paper,  which 
laid  him  open  to  the  charge  of  heresy.  His  bishop  came  to 
talk  the  subject  over  with  Dr.  Allen,  in  the  hope  of  helping 
the  man,  though  not  a  pupil  of  Dr.  Allen's.  Bishop  Vin- 
cent was  eager  to  avoid  a  heresy  trial.  The  Bishop  did  all 
that  any  one  could  do,  but  the  case  was  formally  brought  to 
the  Standing  Committee  of  the  Diocese,  and  so  was  out  of 
his  control. 
17 


242  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

"I  am  inclined  to  think  the  present  trouble  very  serious," 
Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor.  "I  may  be  wrong  in  esti- 
mating the  situation:  it  is  so  hard  to  tell  a  tempest  in  a 
teapot  from  a  real  storm." 

He  wrote  in  September  of  his  son's  farewell  visit  to 
Cambridge  before  going  to  Atlanta:  ''It  was  rather  tragic. 
We  sat  on  Monday  night,  after  dinner,  man-fashion,  not 
saying  anything,  unable  to  do  so.  It  became  rather  pain- 
ful, and  he  finally  remarked  that  perhaps  he  had  better 
start.  It  was  earlier  than  was  necessary  by  some  two 
hours.  And  so  he  went.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this 
reserve  of  which  we  were  both  victims  when  we  least 
wanted  to  be?  A  sort  of  safe-guard  against  breaking  down, 
it  may  be.  But  I  don't  know.  We  don't  tell  each  other 
what  we  think  or  feel,  and  the  moment  hurries  away.  It 
must  be  we  read  each  other  truly  enough,  and  more  truly, 
it  may  be,  than  words  could  express.  But  the  words  — 
'In  the  beginning  was  the  Word.'  Somehow  the  mystery 
of  things  seems  to  be  haunting  me  more  than  usual  this 
summer.     I  think  I  am  tired." 

The  next  day  he  wrote  to  his  son:  "Well,  you  must  go 
with  a  brave  heart,  dear  Harry,  and  full  of  courage  and  of 
hope  for  the  future  and  the  determination  to  win,  and  (in 
the  old  language)  with  faith  in  God,  as  though  He  were 
sending  you,  and  were  responsible  for  you.  We  use  this 
language  for  religious  occasions,  but  it  applies  equally  well 
to  business  and  secular  things.  ...  I  must  confess  to 
depression  at  your  going,  which  has  been  hard  to  throw  off. 
But  the  true  way  is  to  look  at  the  brighter  side,  and  I  shall 
try  to  do  so." 

This  counsel  he  gave  to  a  pupil  studying  the  Old  Testa- 
ment: "To  go  to  it  with  a  mind  full  of  poetry  is  to  see  more 
deeply  into  its  meaning.  That  is  one  great  trouble  with 
the  clergy:  they  do  these  things  without  poetry,  and  then 
they  sink  down  to  a  dreary  dogmatic  level.  Calvinism 
never  made  poets." 


THE  SUPREME  VOW 


243 


After  a  few  days  in  New  Hampshire,  he  wrote  from 
Cambridge,  in  October:  "What says,  not  to  be  dis- 
respectful, is  all  rot,  but  he  says  it  as  well  as  any  one. 
The  idea  that  the  Christian  ministry  has  got  down  to  that 
low  point  of  a  business  corporation,  making  a  bread  and 
butter  arrangement  with  its  clergy  on  certain  conditions 
fulfilled  which  may  be  made  by  any  hypocrite!  I  want  to 
say  something  on  the  evils  of  institutionalism;  for  they 
have  begun  to  appear.  The  only  clerical  vow  is  in  answer 
to  the  thrice  repeated  question  of  Christ  to  Peter,  'Lovest 
thou  me?'" 

About  this  time  a  great  joy  came  into  Dr.  Allen's  life, 
but  his  friends  did  not  at  once  know  what  it  was.  Only 
they  were  sure  that  the  loneliness  and  toil  were  fused  with 
a  new  buoyancy.  "Joy  and  sorrow,"  he  wrote,  October  5, 
"are  closely  related.  When  we  are  deeply  moved,  we  do 
not  know  whether  we  are  laughing  or  weeping,  and  the 
tears  come  with  laughter.  I  suppose  I  have  acquired  the 
habit  of  concealing  the  expression  of  feeling,  a  sort  of  safe- 
guard to  a  very  sensitive  nature.  When  writing  the 
Memoir  I  thought  Brooks  was  reserved.  I  think  his 
reserve  wasn't  a  shadow  compared  with  mine." 

A  little  later  he  wrote  that  he  feared  that  the  work  of 
the  summer  had  been  too  much  for  him,  because  the  excite- 
ment of  it  kept  on,  and  unfitted  him  for  work.  But  he  was 
well,  and  the  excitement  was  not  quite  explained.  Pie 
dreaded  the  storm  that  he  feared  would  follow  the  appear- 
ance of  his  book :  less  and  less  was  the  book  his  own  choice. 
But  God's  will,  he  said,  is  clear,  so  that  we  run  to  fulfil  it. 
He  was  anticipating,  too,  Professor  James's  lectures  at  the 
Lowell  Institute  this  fall  on  Pragmatism,  and  told  him  so. 

In    thanking    Dr.    Allen,    Mr.   James  wrote:  " is  a 

regular  pragmatist:  I  learn  that  from  hearing  him  lecture 
last  summer.     If  you're  also  one,  we  will  scoop  things." 

After  keeping  himself  from  great  music  for  many  years, 
Dr.  Allen  went  this  fall  to  hear  The  Elijah  sung,  and 


244  THE  APPEAL  FOR  HELP 

on  coming  home  he  wrote:  "To  be  resigned  to  suffering  I 
can  understand.  To  go  through  life  not  asking  for  happi- 
ness, only  for  the  grace  to  endure  —  that  has  seemed  to 
me  the  truest  wisdom.  But  where  does  the  Bible  say 
anything  about  the  endurance  of  happiness,  to  be  resigned 
to  happiness,  to  feel  that  it  is  not  a  sin  to  be  happy!  It 
may  be  this  old  Puritan  strain  in  the  blood.  Perhaps  the 
contrast  is  needed  in  order  to  apprehend.  What  a  culmi- 
nation—  the  0  rest  in  the  Lord!  I  had  forgotten  it  was 
there.  We  can  take  happiness  from  God,  when  we  could 
not  take  it  from  fortune  or  any  human  source." 

The  middle  of  November  Dr.  Allen  told  his  more  intimate 
friends  that  he  had  become  engaged  to  Miss  Paulina  Cony 
Smith. 

To  Miss  Smith  he  wrote,  November  10,  giving  her  coun- 
sel for  her  Bible  class:  "What  I  mean  is  to  get  thoroughly 
this  new  Bible,  which  is  like  a  revelation  to  the  modern 
student,  and,  while  receiving  it,  to  reconcile  it  with  the 
old  Bible,  read  in  the  dear  old  way.  We  don't  want  either 
a  mechanical  method  or  reckless  criticism.  Why  is  it  that 
women  so  often  choose  one  of  these  alternatives,  instead  of 
the  progressive  conservatism,  where  the  work  is  needed 
which  is  most  important  and  will  endure?  The  role  of 
women,  as  Amiel  puts  it,  is  to  'slacken  the  combustion 
of  thought,  analogous  to  that  of  azote  in  vital  air.'  .  .  . 
Have  I  ever  impressed  the  importance  of  Amiel  on  you 
and  Alice?  It  is  my  favourite  book:  it  sets  me  thinking, 
or  it  quiets  and  consoles." 

He  was  fond  of  talking  of  the  six  little  books  which 
expressed  their  age:  Marcus  Aurelius  (which,  he  confessed, 
made  him  gloomy);  Athanasius  On  the  Incarnation; 
Augustine's  Confessions;  Boethius's  Consolations  of  Philos- 
ophy (in  which  he  cared  especially  for  the  passage  on  Fate 
and  Providence) ;  Anselm's  Cur  Deus  Homo?  and  Thomas 
a  Kempis's  Imitation.  The  nearest  approach  to  such  a 
book  in  our  own  time,  he  thought,  was  In  Memoriam. 


TAULER 


245 


One  was  often  surprised,  upon  confessing  an  interest  in 
a  certain  recent  novel,  to  discover  that  Dr.  Allen  not  only 
had  read  it,  but  had  racy  opinions  upon  all  the  characters, 
and  was  quite  fastidious  in  his  judgments  of  the  author's 
workmanship.  He  was  indeed,  he  said,  a  hardened  novel 
reader.  He  wished  that  some  one  might  write  a  really 
ecclesiastical  and  theological  novel,  using  this  popular 
form  to  teach  a  robust  Christianity  and  a  wholesome 
Churchmanship.  Trollope  introduced  bishops  and  deans 
only  as  part  of  society.  And  Baring-Gould  gave  you  no 
inkling  that  he  was  a  clergyman.  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 
made  him  merry  with  Robert  Elsmere,  who,  she  averred, 
was  saturated  with  history  at  the  age  of  twenty-six;  after- 
wards she  captivated  him  with  the  stories  that  followed; 
then  she  lost  her  power,  he  thought,  and  he  could  not  read 
her  later  books.  The  novel  was  one  more  avenue  through 
which  he  approached  a  knowledge  of  life. 

In  December  he  wrote:  "I  read  to  the  class  Tauler's 
Sermon  for  the  Second  Sunday  in  Advent,  a.d.  1361,  as  an 
expression  of  pure  mysticism.  I  was  struck  with  the  re- 
semblance of  'Eddyism'  to  some  of  Eckhart's  and  Tauler's 
sentences.  There  is  a  vein  of  mysticism  passing  over  the 
world  to-day.     Dr.  Inge  is  in  it." 

So  the  year  1906  passed  —  with  the  manuscript  of  a  new 
book  in  the  hands  of  the  publishers,  with  a  storm  impend- 
ing, but  with  a  sense  of  great  happiness  to  meet  whatever 
might  come. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

FREEDOM    IN  THE   CHURCH 

1907 

THE  year  1907  was  a  year  of  outward  controversy 
and  inward  peace.  Freedom  in  the  Church  was 
hurried  through  the  press  by  the  publishers  and  was  issued 
in  February.  When  the  book  was  actually  out  of  his 
hands,  Dr.  Allen  began  to  feel  the  long  strain  which  had 
robbed  him  of  his  summer  rest.  "I  can't  understand," 
he  said  to  a  friend,  "this  collapse  which  takes  the  life  out  of 
me,  unless  it  is  grip.  I  go  to  lectures  and  prayers  and  all 
other  things  which  a  Christian  ought  to  do,  etc.,  but  the 
energy  flags." 

The  same  day  he  wrote  to  one  whose  sister  after  years 
of  illness  was  approaching  death  through  the  gate  of  in- 
sanity: "I  see  it  all,  and  I  can't  explain  it  or  don't  want  to 
try  to  do  so.  There  may  be  some  merciful  provision  by 
which  you  are  not  tried  above  you  are  able.     So  long  as 

she  continues  in  this  way,  she  is  not  the  real -,  and  yet 

you  cannot  mourn  her  as  wholly  lost;  or  it  may  be  that  the 
subconscious  nature,  which  acts  for  us  in  emergencies 
when  the  mind  is  bewildered  or  incompetent,  may  now  be 
taking  the  lead  and  tiding  you  over  the  saddest  and  most 
incomprehensible  situation.  The  mourning  must  come  and 
the  lifelong  yearning  and  sense  of  loss  —  but  not  yet." 

He  then  went  on  to  speak  of  himself.     "I  am  glad  I 

don't  lecture  like  Mr.  or  for  you  to  hear  me.     If  I 

attempted  it,  I  should  either  adapt  myself  to  a  popular 
audience  and  not  tell  what  I  thought  or  interested  me,  or 

246 


SYMPATHY  IN  TEACHING  247 

else  attempt  to  do  so  and  not  be  understood  and  fail.  My 
mind  does  not  move  any  longer  with  popular  audiences,  and 
I  distrust  the  whole  lecture  system  that  does.  With  the 
students  I  can  talk  out,  but  I  have  prepared  them  to  follow 
me  and  they  know  where  I  am.  Perhaps  it  is  too  intense 
individualism;  but  I  am  always  moving,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
underground,  beneath  institutions  and  customs  and  for- 
mulas of  thought,  and  trying  to  get  at  some  deeper  meaning. 
But  I  couldn't  give  it,  if  I  tried,  and  I  give  only  snatches 
of  it  in  books.  ...  I  am  writing  you  a  longish  letter  — 
and  about  myself  too." 

Probably  there  is  no  better  analysis  of  Dr.  Allen's 
peculiar  gift.  Everything  was  secondary  to  his  work  in  his 
class  room.  The  best  thing  an  old  pupil  could  say  of  any 
of  his  books  was  that  it  faintly  reminded  him  of  his  lectures 
at  the  School.  There  was  an  indescribable  charm  in  the 
intimacy  and  dignity  of  the  fellowship  which  the  lecturer 
offered  to  young  men  who  gave  themselves  to  him  that 
they  might  learn  the  highest  message  he  could  tell  of 
God  in  history. 

On  January  26  Dr.  Allen  was  married  in  Trinity  Church, 
Boston,  to  Miss  Paulina  Cony  Smith.  His  friends  were 
grateful  to  Mrs.  Allen  for  the  great  happiness  she  brought 
to  him  after  all  his  years  of  loneliness. 

Within  a  month  Freedom  in  the  Church  appeared,  sent 
as  a  gift  to  five  thousand  clergymen  by  a  generous  layman. 
Then  the  storm  began  to  blow.  But  it  did  not  reach  the 
quiet  study  at  Phillips  Place,  for  Dr.  Allen  made  it  a  rule 
not  to  read  the  reviews.  He  might  sometime  read  them, 
but  not  yet.  "If  I  do  not  win  any  gratitude  for  my  work," 
he  wrote  to  his  son,  "it  begins  to  look  as  if  I  might  gain 
some  notoriety.  It  is  all  very  obnoxious  to  me,  but,  as  it 
can't  be  helped,  I  am  resigned.  I  am  glad  the  book  is  out 
of  my  hands,  whatever  may  be  its  fate.  It  will  be  coldly 
received  by  the  secular  press,  for  it  disputes  the  rights  of 
the  journalist  or  the  man  in  the  street  to  settle  these  things. 


248  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

Indeed  much  of  our  trouble  is  owing  to  them.  They  have 
played  into  the  hands  of  extreme  ecclesiasticism." 

All  through  the  spring  he  was  receiving  letters  about 
Freedom  in  the  Church.  The  press  in  America  ignored  or 
condemned  the  book.  In  England  The  Spectator  and  The 
Nation  praised  it.  The  chief  difficulty  with  the  book  was 
that  it  seemed  popular  and  was  not.  The  Church  in 
America  had  been  roused  by  heresy  and  rumours  of  heresy, 
and  it  was  in  no  mood  to  weigh  delicate  questions.  The 
old  pupils  missed  Dr.  Allen's  appeal  to  the  continuous 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  Church  History  and  felt 
that  he  was  making  a  special  plea  for  a  particular  age. 
They  recognized  that  it  was,  as  one  of  them  said,  a  "tract 
for  the  times,"  not  "  a  statement  of  his  conception  of  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  or  Christian  Life  in  its  entirety";  and  they 
knew  that  partisans  would  ignore  what  he  had  written  in 
other  books,  either  through  ignorance  of  them  or  through 
ecclesiastical  forgetfulness,  and  would  brand  this  partial 
view  as  his  whole  doctrine.  "I  have  read  the  book  with 
delight,"  the  Rev.  A.  N.  Peaslee  wrote  to  the  publishers, 
"as  I  read  all  that  my  best  of  teachers  has  written.  But  I 
have  read  it  with  sadness  too.  It  will  not  be  understood 
nor  accepted  among  those  who  most,  need  its  teaching; 
and  its  real  arguments  will  be  travestied  by  many  who 
deem  themselves  his  disciples.  I  am  thankful  for  the  book, 
but  it  will  not  touch  the  champions  of  orthodoxy.  It  may 
give  some  unquiet  souls  the  much  desired  assurance  that 
the  Church  is  still  their  home." 

The  book  bears  the  marks  of  haste,  but  its  main  con- 
tention is  sufficiently  clear.  All  who  were  in  sympathy 
with  young  men  of  thoughtful  temper  knew  that  some 
word  from  an  authority  was  needed.  The  volume  was 
written  to  recall  the  Church  to  a  sense  of  proportion.  It 
was  written  to  help  people  to  steady  their  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ.  With  the  spirit  of  a  scholar  Dr.  Allen  drew 
attention  to  certain  historical  principles  which  a  time  of 


PROPORTION  IN  DOCTRINE  249 

panic  was  apt  to  overlook.  It  was  possible  so  to  magnify 
the  manner  of  our  Lord's  birth  that  His  mother  would 
come  to  have  an  undue  prominence,  and  our  Lord's  hu- 
manity would  be  ignored,  till  He  ceased  to  seem  to  men 
to  be  their  Saviour.  This  had  happened:  it  could  happen 
again.  He  contended  that  the  Incarnation  is  a  vastly 
larger  conception  than  the  Virgin  Birth,  and  not  its  equiv- 
alent. Finally,  when  men  were  throwing  out  insinuations 
of  dishonesty  sufficient  to  frighten  conscientious  youth 
from  the  ministry,  it  was  well  to  consider  that  the  Anglican 
traditions,  to  which  we  owed  an  immediate  loyalty,  put 
the  Scripture  above  the  Creeds  —  thus  Scripture  inter- 
preted the  Creeds;  and  not  Creeds  the  Scripture.  Dr. 
Allen  had  no  thought  of  saying  the  last  word.  He  felt 
that  much  remained  to  be  said  in  behalf  of  the  Virgin 
Birth.  When  he  said  that  he  accepted  the  Virgin  Birth  as 
a  fact  of  history  he  was  as  frankly  honest  as  any  man  can 
be.  He  had  no  sympathy  for  the  cheap  denials  of  a  well 
attested  fact  of  history  in  the  name  of  science  or  in  the 
name  of  a  priori  theological  notions  of  what  is  fitting.  He 
had  great  sympathy  for  men  who  had  trouble  with  the  fact, 
and  who  wondered  if  they  accepted  it  or  not.  He  felt  that 
if  they  could  see  the  Incarnation  first,  and  the  fact  of  the 
Virgin  Birth  as  an  incident,  all  would  fall  into  place.  He 
felt  too  that  blind  zealots,  seeking  to  defend  one  truth, 
were  liable  to  deny  another  truth  equally  precious.  He 
pleaded  for  the  Christ  who  is  at  once  very  God  and  very 
Man. 

Dr.  Allen's  friends  outside  his  own  Church  were  divided 
in  their  opinion  of  the  book.  Dr.  Gordon  was  heard  to 
say  in  a  book-shop,  as  he  put  his  hand  on  the  volume, 
"  Yes,  Dr.  Allen  is  a  great  man;  but  he  has  allowed  his  love 
for  the  Church  to  run  away  with  his  critical  judgment." 
There  were  a  good  many  who  were  sorry  that  he  had  not 
denied  what  he  could  not  deny.  They  could  not  under- 
stand his  reverence  for  the  institution  as  a  valid  witness  to 


250  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

truth.  If  the  Virgin  Birth  meant  nothing  to  them  they 
felt  free  to  deny  the  fact.  On  the  other  hand,  men  like 
Professor  Bowne,  of  Boston  University,  gave  him  full 
sympathy. 

"I  have  been  a  good  deal  pummelled  in  my  life,"  he  told 
his  son, "  and  have  got  accustomed  to  it.  Still  I  would  rather 
write  things  that  pleased,  and  perhaps  now  I  may  get  into 
a  quieter  atmosphere.  But  it  has  been  very  trying  these 
last  six  months  or  more.  I  do  not  agree  with  Crapsey  and 
have  no  sympathy  with  him.  But  the  method  of  the  trial 
seemed  almost  like  a  farce  compared  with  similar  trials  in 
England.  The  situation  in  the  English  Church  ministers 
to  comprehensiveness  and  freedom.  In  America  we  suffer 
from  a  certain  doctrinaire  tendency  from  which  as  a  rule 
the  English  people  are  more  nearly  exempt.  Besides  we 
have  no  ecclesiastical  lawyers,  and  in  this  case  English 
precedents  went  for  nothing." 

To  a  layman  who  wrote  to  him  about  miracles  he  replied 
in  April:  "I  quite  agree  with  you  about  the  miracle  and  its 
importance.  In  a  book  of  mine  called  Christian  Institu- 
tions, should  you  care  to  take  the  trouble  to  look  at  it,  you 
will  find  a  chapter  headed  Miracles,  with  which  I  think 
you  will  find  yourself  in  agreement.  I  also  attach  great 
importance  to  the  Virgin  Birth  and  the  Resurrection.  As 
for  clergymen  who  deny  them,  I  do  not  see  how  they  can 
comfortably  officiate  in  this  Church  of  ours. 

"But  I  meet  a  great  many  laity  who  cannot  believe  in 
the  miraculous  and  who  find  themselves  prevented  in 
consequence  from  full  communion  in  our  Church.  The 
tendency  of  science  is  to-day  very  intense  and  wide-spread, 
and  it  increases  steadily.  Are  all  these  to  be  shut  out  alike 
from  the  Churches  because  of  their  inability  to  accept 
the  miracle?  That  is  the  question  which  confronts  all  the 
Churches  —  the  Roman  Catholic  as  well  as  our  own.  The 
question  is  so  grave  that  it  fills  one  with  perplexity. 
And  apparently  no  solution  is  in  sight. 


MIRACLES  251 

"Meantime  we  cannot  be  wrong  in  attaching  the  greater 
importance  to  Christian  Charity:  'By  this  shall  all  men 
know,'  says  our  Lord,  'that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have 
love  one  to  another.'  Can  there  be  danger  of  anarchy  if 
we  keep  to  that  word  of  the  Master? 

"As  you  may  not  have  access  to  my  book  of  which  I 
spoke,  I  transcribe  from  it  a  passage  which  represents  my 
own  attitude: 

"Let  us  beware  of  wishing  to  force  those  who  are  already  in 
possession  of  revelation  to  admit  its  miraculous  origin  and  to 
make  their  salvation  dependent  on  this  belief.  It  is  already 
much  if  the  light  of  divine  revelation  shines  upon  them,  and  if 
they  walk  illuminated  by  this  sun.  If  their  convictions  clash 
against  miracles,  I  say  to  them:  My  friends,  I  do  not  wish  to 
impose  the  faith  in  miracles  upon  you.  Beneficia  non  obtru- 
duntur.  Are  you  not  able  to  accept  them?  Well,  then,  let 
them  alone.  It  is  for  you  to  see  how  you  will,  without  their  aid, 
explain  history  and  the  course  of  events  which  we  only  under- 
stand by  their  means.  For  my  part,  I  do  not  admit  miracles 
from  a  sort  of  dogmatic  cupidity,  but  in  an  historical  interest; 
because  in  presence  of  certain  incontestable  facts  I  cannot  do 
without  miracles  as  furnishing  the  only  truly  rational  expla- 
nation; not  because  they  make  gaps  in  history  to  our  eyes,  but 
because  they  rather  help  me  to  cross  over  yawning  abysses." 
(pp.  391  f.) 

Another  layman  wrote  to  ask  in  what  way  the  Bible 
was  the  supreme  authority  in  the  Church;  and  Dr.  Allen 
answered  him:  "I  should  put  the  question  in  this  way: 
The  authority  is  Scripture  —  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God 
and  as  containing  all  things  necessary  to  Salvation.  But 
what  primarily  makes  the  Bible  authoritative  is  that  it 
contains  the  portrait  of  Christ,  His  teaching,  His  charac- 
ter, His  life,  His  death  and  passion.  In  the  Gospels  we 
have  not  only  Christ,  but  the  impression  made  on  His 
contemporaries,  and  we  have  the  comment  of  apostles  and 
evangelists  on  the  meaning  of  His  teaching,  and  His  life. 


252  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

Hence,  Christ,  the  Founder  of  our  religion,  is  the  Supreme 
Authority. 

"But  mere  assent  to  the  teaching  of  Christ  is  not  enough, 
though  it  is  much.  There  is  the  effect  of  His  teaching  and 
life  on  the  mind,  which  constitutes  experience;  and  experi- 
ence, in  turn,  bears  witness  to  the  truth  of  His  teaching 
and  life,  and  the  rightfulness  of  His  claim  to  our  allegiance. 
So  if  we  are  challenged  for  our  authority,  we  may  reply 
that  it  is  our  experience,  the  Christian  consciousness 
begotten  in  us. 

"The  Bible,  Christ,  our  inward  Christian  consciousness 
or  experience,  are  practically  one.  Sometimes,  or  as  the 
occasion  demands,  we  assert  one  or  the  other.  Authority 
becomes  a  great  religious  process  of  growth.  We  turn 
constantly  to  Scripture  for  new  light  on  the  Person  of 
Christ  —  on  the  deeper  meaning  of  His  words.  There 
was  never  an  age  which  drew  more  deeply  on  the  divine 
sources  in  Scripture  than  our  own.  After  a  century  of 
criticism  we  are  coming  at  last  to  the  rehabilitation  of  the 
Bible  in  the  confidence  of  the  Church. 

"But  all  this  does  not  prevent  our  returning  to  other 
sources,  to  the  experience  and  reflection  of  good  men  in 
every  age  of  the  Church.  They  are  not  authorities  in 
the  highest  sense,  but  they  supplement  and  confirm  the 
authority.  With  our  own  knowledge  of  Christ  as  the 
way  and  the  truth  and  the  life,  we  may  go  safely  to 
what  others  have  found  in  Him,  and  so  deepen  our  own 
experience. 

"What  confuses  the  mind  of  people  to-day  is  the  effects 
of  the  old  destructive  criticism  of  the  last  century,  which 
made  men  feel  that  they  needed  some  other  authority,  and 
they  substituted  the  Church,  the  creeds,  tradition,  as 
being  more  available  authorities.  The  Roman  Church  ven- 
tured to  add  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope.  But  the  mood 
which  generated  these  substitutes  for  the  highest  authority 
has  passed,  or  is  passing  away,  with  the  recovery  of  the 


FORTIETH  YEAR  AS  TEACHER     253 

Bible  and  the  new  conviction  of  Christ  as  the  world's 
Master  and  divine  Leader. 

"The  question  is  a  large  one  to  answer  in  a  letter.  I 
hope  I  have  made  myself  clear,  even  if  I  have  given  you 
only  the  germ  of  an  answer." 

The  Commencement  of  June,  1907,  became  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  fortieth  anniversary  of  the  Episcopal  Theologi- 
cal School.  Dr.  Steenstra  retired  from  active  service, 
becoming  Professor  emeritus.  It  was  announced  that  the 
Rev.  Philip  M.  Rhinelander  had  been  elected  Professor 
of  the  History  of  Religion  and  Missions,  an  election  made 
possible  by  the  gifts  and  pledges  of  the  alumni  inaugurating 
a  fund  for  this  professorship.  Mr.  William  C.  Endicott 
resigned  as  trustee,  and  was  succeeded  the  following  year 
by  Mr.  John  G.  Wright.  The  School  property  was  in- 
creased by  the  purchase  of  the  J.  Gardner  White  house, 
next  Dr.  Allen's,  thus  providing  a  home  for  another  pro- 
fessor in  the  School  precincts.  An  unusual  number  of 
alumni  returned  for  the  dinner  the  night  before  Commence- 
ment, and  Dr.  Steenstra  and  Dr.  Allen  were  the  centre  of 
attraction;  for  their  service  spanned  the  whole  forty  years. 
Besides,  it  was  Dr.  Nash's  twenty-fifth  year  of  teaching  in 
the  School;  he  was  absent  through  illness,  but  words  of 
deep  gratitude  were  spoken  of  him  all  through  the  evening. 

"We  talk  about  forty  years,"  said  Dr.  Allen  in  the  course  of 
his  speech.  "I  suppose  it  is,  and  I  understand  that  this  is  a 
definite  period  of  time,  but  it  is  also  a  round  number,  and  it  is 
as  a  round  number  that  I  can  best  understand  it.  We  do  not 
know  what  time  means.  We  can  measure  it  better  if  we  think 
of  movements,  and  indeed  when  you  come  to  long  years  a  certain 
element  of  timelessness  enters  in:  'A  thousand  years  are  as 
one  day,  and  one  day  as  a  thousand  years.'  That  element  of 
timelessness  is  one  of  the  important  conclusions  we  reach  in 
studying  the  history  of  the  Church.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
Council  of  Nicaea  is  always  in  session,  proclaiming  its  great 
truth.     Whenever  the  mind  of  the  Church  has  not  been  quite 


254  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

satisfied,  there  the  old  controversies  continue.  There  are 
always  evils  in  the  Church  which  call  for  reformation;  and  a 
reformation  is  always  in  order.  Every  age  is  an  age  of  tran- 
sition. I  suppose  that  to-day  we  are  on  the  eve  of  one  of  the 
greatest  transitions  of  the  Church  —  but  then  every  day  is  the 
same.  Young  men  come  up  in  each  new  generation  with  a 
different  outlook,  and  someway  they  manage  to  impress  it  upon 
the  world,  and  the  world  is  changed.  I  can  see  the  process 
to-day  in  the  School,  and  in  the  men  who  come  here:  it  is  not 
quite  what  it  was  ten  years  ago.  Things  change  more  rapidly 
than  they  did.  These  questions  that  we  have  been  debating 
in  the  past  generation  are  questions  of  grave  importance  for  the 
Church.  Some  have  been  settled;  most  of  them  have  disap- 
peared; others  —  such  as  the  explanation  of  Biblical  difficulties 
—  continue  to  embarrass.  The  problem  of  the  miraculous  is 
still  a  painful  one.  There  has  been  the  trouble  about  the  Virgin 
Birth.  No  one  knows  the  amount  of  time  given  here  in  trying 
to  straighten  out  that  difficulty  or  in  maintaining  the  statement 
of  the  Creed.     I  think  that  difficulty  also  will  disappear." 

Then  he  tried  to  define  the  position  of  the  School:  "I  do  not 
know,"  he  said,  "that  I  can  put  that  position  in  a  few  words, 
but  it  is  something  like  Raphael's  'School  of  Athens,'  where 
Plato  stands  pointing  to  the  heavens,  and  Aristotle  stands,  as 
in  protest,  with  his  hand  pointing  down  to  things  as  they  are 
on  earth.  Such  was  the  mediaeval  interpretation  of  the  mo- 
ment just  before  the  Reformation,  and  I  think  it  tells  about 
the  whole.  We  have  constantly  before  us  the  problem  of 
harmonizing  the  institution,  things  as  they  are,  with  the  new 
truth  that  comes  down  from  God  Himself,  God  in  direct  com- 
munion with  men.  I  am  not  saying  that  Raphael  was  the  true 
interpreter  of  philosophy.  It  is  the  historical  spirit  with  which 
we  are  concerned.  This  was  the  way  men  in  Italy  felt,  and  this 
is  the  way  they  felt  in  the  English  and  German  Reformation. 
God  had  a  message  to  give,  and  the  message  must  someway  be 
incorporated  with  things  as  they  are,  or  there  was  danger  to  the 
institution.  Now  we  all  believe  in  the  institution,  and  it  is  one 
of  the  things  to  be  grateful  for  that  we  are  tied  to  it.  But  we 
do  also  believe  that  God  is  opening  before  us  new  ways  of  look- 
ing at  the  old  truth,  and  we  must  be  ready,  we  must  keep  the 


OXFORD  MOVEMENT  255 

open  mind  for  the  new  vision.  This  School,  you  remember, 
arose  at  the  moment  when  the  Oxford  influence  was  at  its 
height,  when  the  world  and  the  Church  had  lost  something  of 
faith  in  God  or  in  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God.  I  do  not  know 
what  we  should  have  done  without  the  Oxford  Movement.  It 
called  our  attention  to  Church  history,  to  the  consciousness  of 
the  Church,  to  the  profound  truth  that  the  influence  of  Christ 
is  perpetuated  in  the  Church,  the  continuance  of  His  life  through- 
out all  ages.  It  is  of  course  a  dangerous  thing  to  keep  the  open 
mind  for  the  new  truth,  but  everything  is  dangerous  in  this 
world.  There  will  always  be  fanaticism;  there  will  be  per- 
versions of  all  kinds  waiting  upon  this  conviction  that  God 
speaks  to  the  world  and  teaches  us  to-day.  But  in  sound  learn- 
ing, in  good  sense,  in  faith  and  charity,  lies  the  hope  for  the 
Church  and  for  the  world. 

"In  speaking  then  of  this  round  period  of  forty  years  I 
think  it  is  something  to  have  kept  the  feeling,  the  faith,  that 
better  things  are  yet  to  come.  The  outlook  for  the  Church  and 
for  us  as  individual  men,  as  individual  clergymen,  is  more 
wonderful  than  it  has  ever  been  before.  The  old  feeling  of 
the  last  century  about  the  Bible,  that  it  cannot  be  trusted,  has 
gone  by.  We  have  come  back  again  to  trust  it  as  the  book 
from  whose  study  we  shall  yet  see  God  anew  and  hear  God 
speaking.  From  its  study  great  truths  may  yet  be  revealed  to 
the  Church.     That  is  the  attitude  of  the  coming  age. 

"It  is  amazing,  if  one  keeps  track  of  the  literature  —  and 
modern  literature  is  coming  to  mean  something  in  Church 
history  —  that  the  best  minds  are  going  back  to  the  study  of 
the  origin  of  the  New  Testament.  There  is  Harnack,  for 
example,  who  has  dropped  his  study  of  history  except  that  of 
the  first  and  second  centuries,  and  finds  his  absorbing  interest 
in  the  original  sources  and  the  literature  of  the  New  Testament 
age.  That  is  the  spirit  now  working  in  the  Schools.  We  are 
slowly  getting  nearer  to  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  being.  We 
are  getting  back  again  to  Christ  as  no  other  age  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  known  Him.  We  begin  to  see  Him  —  and  even 
more  clearly  than  those  who  walked  with  Him  in  the  flesh  — 
because  we  can  read  the  influences  that  acted  upon  the  time  in 
a  way  in  which  the  actors  could  not  recognize  them.    We  wait 


256  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

only  for  the  spark  of  divine  fire  and  a  religious  revival  which 
shall  shake  the  world.  That  I  live  hoping  to  see.  Christ 
means  more  to  us  than  we  have  hitherto  seen.  He  means  to  us 
these  two  things  in  particular  —  the  coming  into  the  world  of 
a  love  such  as  the  world  had  never  known  before,  and  also  a 
boundless  hope." 

It  was  good  that  the  men  all  stood  as  he  rose  to  speak; 
it  was  good  that  he  caught  from  their  gleaming  eyes  the 
news  that  his  message  had  kindled  in  them  faith  and  hope 
and  love;  it  was  good  that  he  went  home  that  night  very 
glad,  in  the  consciousness  that  whatever  was  imperfect  in 
his  teaching  would  be  lost  and  the  best  would  be  carried 
forward.  For  it  was  his  last  speech  to  the  alumni.  The 
Church  at  large  had  misunderstood  him.  His  pupils  had 
various  opinions  of  his  last  book,  but  they  had  only  one 
opinion  of  him.  That  night  he  knew  once  again  their 
gratitude  and  their  affection.  "  There  were  a  great  many 
men  back,"  he  said  simply  as  he  returned  to  his  house. 
"I  knew  them  all." 

When  the  School  closed,  once  more  the  work  of  book- 
making  began.  The  Life  of  Phillips  Brooks  must  be 
reduced,  and  Dr.  Allen  could  not  rest  till  this  was  accom- 
plished. Mrs.  Allen  gave  him  constant  help,  and  made 
the  work  easy  for  him. 

He  wrote  in  September  to  an  old  pupil:  "I  am  glad  that 
you  are  at  work  on  the  commentary  on .  This  com- 
bination of  the  practical  parish  minister  with  the  scholarly 
worker  is  a  good  one,  and  it  certainly  is  most  rare,  in  this 
country  at  least.  So  I  hope  you  will  keep  on  in  that  line. 
...  I  have  been  hard  at  work  all  summer,  on  the  reduced 
Life  of  Brooks,  and  yesterday  sent  off  the  MS.  to  the  pub- 
lisher. I  have  kept  at  the  task  with  an  uneasy  feeling,  for 
it  prevented  my  doing  other  and  much  more  important 
work.  But  I  was  under  an  obligation  to  do  it,  and  as  I  was 
keeping  others  from  doing  it,  the  only  thing  was  for  me  to 
undertake  it.     Great  as  the  reduction  is,  the  abridged  Life 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NATION         257 

will  be  a  book  of  over  600  pages.  ...  I  have  felt  con- 
stantly, as  I  renewed  my  knowledge  of  Brooks's  work,  how 
much  he  belonged  to  a  past  generation,  and  yet  how  vital 
his  message  was  for  this  or  any  age.  This  shows,  I  hope, 
that  he  is  destined  to  live.  It  has  often  made  me  wonder, 
however,  what  kind  of  a  man  he  would  have  been  in  this 
present  day.  .  .  .  We  have  enjoyed  the  summer  here  at 
North  Chatham.  Part  of  the  pleasure  has  been  owing  to 
the  presence  of  Dean  Robbins,  of  the  General  Theological 
Seminary,  who  has  a  bungalow  here.  He  has  not  much 
changed  since  I  knew  him  in  the  School  at  Cambridge; 
but  he  has  proved  immensely  interesting  in  these  long 
talks  we  have  had  every  day,  and  three  times  a  day." 

One  day  this  fall  Bishop  Lawrence  sought  advice 
about  a  speech  which  he  had  been  asked  to  make  at 
Richmond  during  the  General  Convention.  "The  genius 
of  the  Anglican  Church,"  Dr.  Allen  replied,  "is  best  fitted  to 
conserve  national  freedom  as  against  Papacy  which  would 
limit  or  suppress,  or  as  compared  with  Puritanism,  which  is 
interested  chiefly  in  individual  development.  Anglican- 
ism seeks  for  individual  development,  but  finds  it  through 
the  freedom  of  the  State,  and  aims  at  this  latter  therefore 
primarily  and  directly.  I  do  not  know  any  book  more  full 
of  fertile  hints  than  Bishop  Creighton's  The  Church  and 
the  Nation.  He  illustrates  the  theme  historically,  and  no 
man  was  better  fitted  to  do  so.  It  is  this  peculiarity  of  the 
Anglican  Church  which  constitutes  its  power.  .  .  .  There 
is  another  book,  Church  and  Empire,  by  Ellison  and  Walpole, 
which  urges  this  principle  as  an  incentive  in  the  mission 
work  of  the  Anglican  Church.  I  was  interested  in  it, 
because  it  made  the  subject  practical,  calling  upon  the 
Anglican  Church  to  rise  to  its  dignity  and  greatness.  .  .  . 
I  tried  to  get  on  this  line  in  the  Dudleian  lecture  at  Harvard 
some  three  years  ago,  but  was  hampered,  because  I  was 
speaking  to  an  audience  which  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
Anglican  Church." 
18 


258  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

"I  was  glad  to  get  your  impressions  of  the  General  Con- 
vention," he  wrote  in  November  to  an  old  pupil;  "I  have 
not  followed  it  closely,  because  I  have  been  pressed  with 
work.  I  did  not  wholly  like  the  preamble  to  the  Consti- 
tution, because  it  raises  many  issues  which  it  does  not 
determine,  and  it  is  better  to  let  them  lie  quietly  if 
possible.  It  reminds  one  of  the  moment  gone  by  some 
twenty  years  ago,  and  it  no  longer  speaks  to  the  present 
moment.  Then  it  is  a  mistake  to  speak  of  the  Apostles' 
Creed  as  a  Catholic  creed  in  the  same  sense  as  the  Nicene, 
for  it  never  has  had  any  oecumenical  recognition  or  author- 
ity. It  is  unknown  to  the  Eastern  Church.  To  speak  of 
these  two  creeds  as  containing  a  'sufficient'  statement  of 
the  Christian  faith,  raises  the  question, '  sufficient  for  what? ' 
If  for  salvation,  then  it  is  requiring  more  than  the  Apostles 
required,  when  they  admitted  converts  to  baptism  or  to 
the  Church.  If  it  means  'sufficient  for  salvation  in  this 
modern  day,'  then  to  many  the  creeds  seem  inadequate. 
If  it  means  'sufficient  without  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,' 
I  am  still  doubtful  about  the  wisdom  of  saying  so.  The 
Creeds  certainly  were  not  sufficient  to  keep  the  Church  in 
ancient  and  mediaeval  times  from  all  sorts  of  errors. 
These  thoughts  intrude  into  my  mind  against  my  will. 
To  abolish  the  Articles,  after  having  required  candidates 
for  Orders  to  stand  an  examination  in  them  for  a  hundred 
years,  is  not  an  act  calculated  to  strengthen  faith  in  the 
Creeds.  The  Creeds  will  stand  on  the  ipse  dixit  of  the 
General  Convention  of  1907. 

"And  then  again,  in  regard  to  the  ministry,  it  irritates 
our  brethren  of  the  various  Churches  to  hear  that  statement : 
it  does  not  reconcile.  It  is  the  'antique'  voice  of  scholar- 
ship in  the  16th  century,  finding  utterance  in  the  Preface 
to  the  Ordinal.  It  passes  over  the  learned  investigations 
of  the  last  30  or  more  years,  which  have  shown  that  the  type 
of  organization  in  the  age  of  the  Apostles,  and  from  the 
time  of  the  Apostles  for  some  two  generations,  is  not  the 


TRANSUBSTANTIATION  259 

organization  of  the  American  Church.  If  the  Articles 
must  go,  this  antique  language  of  the  Preface  should 
also  go. 

"But  you  must  excuse  me  for  saying  again  these  weary 
things.  I  thought  the  Convention  was  fine  for  its  Mission- 
ary enthusiasm  and  Christian  feeling  —  and  that  is  the 
great  thing."  The  Bishop  of  London  was  in  America  for 
the  Convention.  "  I  have  not  met  any  one  so  charming," 
said  Dr.  Allen,  "since  Stanley." 

To  Mr.  Wright,  who  had  sent  him  his  Liberal  Theol- 
ogy in  the  Fourth  Century,  Dr.  Allen  wrote  this  month: 
"You  have  shown  quite  clearly  that  Augustine  took 
the  symbolical  view  of  the  Eucharist.  I  have  the  impres- 
sion from  reading  Batiffol  some  time  ago  that  he  gave  him 
up  as  hopeless,  and  so  did  the  teachers  of  the  later  middle 
ages  when  they  were  evolving  the  doctrine  of  Transubstan- 
tiation.  There  are  some  things  that  are  too  strong  and 
altogether  too  powerful  for  a  healthful  religious  growth, 
and  although  something  may  be  said  for  them  in  the  way 
of  a  priori  reasoning,  yet  the  best  instincts  of  the  soul 
reject  them  as  tending  to  limit  and  dwarf  the  religious  life. 
Among  them  are  verbal  inspiration,  transubstantiation, 
and,  in  modern  life,  what  is  known  as  spiritualism.  They 
kill  the  interest  in  the  normal  life  of  man;  they  imply  a 
supernatural,  miraculous  guidance  and  association  which 
God  does  not  mean  we  should  have  in  this  world.  They  are 
at  war  with  the  truly  spiritual  life,  therefore,  which  is  based 
on  faith  —  as  when  Christ  said,  'It  is  expedient  for  you 
that  I  go  away '  —  meaning  in  His  bodily  Presence  with 
His  disciples.  The  best  thing  that  can  be  said  for  the 
Tractarian  view  of  the  Eucharist  is  that  it  may  have  kept 
spiritualism  at  bay,  or  from  invading  the  Church.  For  that, 
I  take  it,  is,  after  all,  the  essence  of  Pusey's  view  —  the 
materialization  of  Christ  on  the  altar.  The  strong,  explicit 
words,  'Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my 
Name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them,'  fade  away  and  lose 


26o  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

their  value  by  the  side  of  such  teaching.  The  speculations 
about  the  Eucharist  among  early  Church  writers,  and 
down  the  whole  history  of  the  Church  have  been  to  me 
the  least  profitable  of  all  theological  writing.  They  have 
been  fanciful  and  unintelligible,  undertaking  to  say  what 
never  can  be  said  clearly,  because  they  turn  about  a  mys-, 
tery  which  is  insoluble.  But  the  natural  man  loves  mystery, 
and  so  does  the  language  of  the  Fathers  appeal  to  him. 
The  Roman  Church  at  last  said  out  what  was  latent  in 
much  that  had  been  written,  and  then  the  process  of  recon- 
struction began.  For  that,  as  I  see  it,  was  one-of  the  leading 
issues  of  the  revolt  of  the  sixteenth  century." 

The  abridged  Life  of  Brooks  came  out  early  in  December, 
and  was  recognized  as  one  more  stage  in  the  process  of 
continuing  the  influence  of  a  great  Christian.  With  its 
appearance  Dr.  Allen  felt  that  he  could  lie  back  on  his  oars 
for  a  season.  He  therefore  gave  himself  up  to  his  friends 
and  his  pupils  with  unusual  freedom  this  winter.  His 
talk  was  now  of  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister's  Bill:  the 
mediaeval  Church  in  making  the  circle  within  which  mar- 
riage was  impossible  had  created  modern  society  —  every 
man  had  a  circle  of  women  with  whom  he  could  associate 
without  the  element  of  sex  entering  in:  marriage  was  so 
complete  that  the  wife's  kin  became  as  a  man's  own. 
Again,  the  talk  was  of  the  Bible.  "Don't  say,"  he  said, 
'"Is it  true?'  but  'What  has  it  done  for  the  world,  what  is 
its  value  now?'"  He  called  himself  the  first  disciple  of 
pragmatism.  "Men,"  he  said,  "had  been  trying  to  put 
the  universe  into  an  intellectual  formula.  Pragmatism 
shows  the  will  as  supreme,  and  the  will,  like  a  hungry 
animal,  seeking  what  it  needs."  The  talk  too  was  often 
of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles:  "Under  their  shell  of  theology 
there  is  a  supreme  devotion  to  Christ."  Some  one  expressed 
surprise  that  a  certain  clergyman  with  a  sour  and  ungen- 
erous personality  could  preach  so  well.  "Oh,"  said  Dr. 
Allen,  "that's  clear  enough:  it's  his  better  self  preaching 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  LIFE  261 

to  his  worse  self  —  it's  no  imaginary  sinner  he's  pummel- 
ling." Coming  home  from  chapel,  where  a  preacher  of  an 
altogether  different  stamp  had  preached  an  uncommonly 
good  sermon,  he  said:  "Drown's  sermon  was  beautiful; 
but  it  leaned  to  Patripassionism.  I  like  the  other  idea  — 
the  looking  into  the  vista  at  the  bottom  of  which  is  free- 
dom from  suffering  —  the  beginning  and  the  end,  victory." 

Some  one  reported  to  him  that  Dr.  had  spoken  of 

a  woman's  leading  ''the  religious  life  in  the  technical  sense"; 
whereupon  he  burst  out,  "I  suppose  he  meant  that  she 

made  a  fool  of  herself  in  some  convent.     Dr. 's  crowd 

don't  know  what  happiness  is." 

Yet  he  was  ordinarily  gentle  in  his  judgments.  ' '  My  point 
of  view  comes  from  knocking  round  the  world  and  finding 
the  bad  in  good  people  and  the  good  in  bad  people."  The 
pupil  who  heard  him  say  this  was  inclined  to  be  amused, 
thinking  him  quite  ignorant  of  the  noisier  world.  But  one 
day  finding  himself  in  a  great  crowd  which  had  gathered 
in  a  Boston  street  around  two  angry  people  in  a  fight,  he 
looked  up  to  see  Dr.  Allen  standing  on  tip-toe,  gazing 
intently  at  the  whole  proceeding;  and  the  man  knew 
instantly  that  his  teacher  of  Church  history  gave  his  whole 
mind  to  the  human  story  wherever  he  found  it,  in  living 
men  even  more  than  in  books. 

It  sometimes  seemed  to  Dr.  Allen's  pupils  that  in  his 
evident  goodness  he  did  not  feel  the  hardness  of  the  struggle 
to  resist  the  bad.  "He  was  utterly  unfair  to  Augustine," 
said  one  pupil;  "Augustine's  fierce  moral  agonies  I  think 
found  no  echoes  in  his  own  life."  One  young  man,  quite 
conscious  of  the  struggle,  recalls  how  Dr.  Allen  told  him 
with  a  penitent  shiver  of  a  certain  oral  examination  in  the 
old  school-days  at  Nantucket  —  when,  seeing  that  a  little 
girl  was  about  to  fail,  he  wrote  the  answer  on  his  slate  for 
her  to  see:  even  the  sense  of  chivalry  had  not  eased  his 
conscience  all  the  years.  The  young  man  wondered  how 
Dr.  Allen  would  have  felt  had  he  been  confessing  sins  like 


262  FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 

his  own.  Dr.  Allen  had  the  gradual  discipline  towards 
righteousness  which  removes  the  Augustine-like  conver- 
sions; but  by  a  spacious  humanism  he  entered  into  the 
struggle  of  the  world.  "After  you  have  come  close  to 
drunkenness  or  insanity,"  he  said,  "life  is  never  the  same. 
I  cannot  regard  nature  as  beneficent.  It  is  not  evil,  but, 
under  divine  permission,  there  is  evil  in  it.  We  cannot 
understand  the  purpose,  but  must  accept  it."  Nor  was  it 
a  mere  aesthetic  emotion.  When  some  one  was  rejoicing 
one  day  that  a  wrong-doer  was  at  last  getting  his  due  pun- 
ishment, Dr.  Allen  was  silent;  then,  when  asked  if  he  felt 
no  satisfaction,  he  answered,  "No:  when  I  hear  that  some 
one  has  done  wrong,  I  feel  as  if  I  had  done  it  myself." 
Even  many  of  Dr.  Allen's  students  and  friends  did  not 
know  how  thorough  his  commiseration  and  sorrow  were  for 
all  that  was  lame  or  crooked:  his  tenderness  was  indeed  so 
complete  that  he  steeled  himself  to  conceal  his  true  feeling 
lest  he  break  down  with  emotion. 

A  student  who  did  newspaper  work  in  Boston  met  him 
posting  a  letter  late  one  night.  Dr.  Allen  said,  "We  are 
out  late;  aren't  we?"  "Yes,"  the  student  said,  "I  have 
to  be  in  Boston  at  my  newspaper  office  very  late."  As  he 
stood  at  the  gate  of  2,  Phillips  Place,  Dr.  Allen  drew  out 
the  whole  story  of  Newspaper  Row  at  midnight  and  after 
—  as  bright  and  busy  as  in  the  day.  A  night  or  two  later 
the  student,  getting  off  his  car,  ran  into  Dr.  Allen,  who  had 
come  from  Boston  on  another  car.  "  It  is  just  as  you  said, " 
he  explained.  "I  thought  I  would  go  and  see  it  all.  It  is 
very  interesting.  Let  me  take  your  arm."  He  was  evi- 
dently quite  weary:  but  the  chance  of  seeing  a  new  phase 
of  the  life  of  the  busy  world  was  worth  an  uncomfortable 
following  day.    He  was  an  indefatigable  investigator. 


CHAPTER  XX 

HAPPINESS   AND    PEACE 

1908 

IN  January,  1908,  Dr.  Allen  wrote  to  Carroll  Perry: 
"You  asked  me  a  question  the  other  night  at  the 
Club,  which  I  did  not  answer,  or,  rather,  I  was  getting 
ready  to  try  to  answer,  when  the  conversation  was  diverted. 
If  you  care  to  know  what  I  think,  it  is  this  —  that  Christ 
comes  to  expectant  souls  whenever  and  wherever  they 
desire  Him.  And  so  He  comes  in  the  experience  of  con- 
version before  Baptism,  or  after  the  rite  if  He  is  then  looked 
for,  in  the  fulness  of  His  power  and  grace.  He  comes  in 
the  experience  of  the  Eucharist  to  those  who  have  been 
taught  that  His  presence  is  conditioned  by  the  sacred 
emblems  of  the  body  and  blood,  but  comes  alike  to  those 
two  or  three  who  are  met  together  in  His  Name.  I  like 
to  think  this,  because  it  is  comprehensive,  and  does  justice 
to  all  sincere  and  earnest  souls  in  their  aspiration  for  the 
highest  good,  and  it  covers  all  variations.  It  was  the 
solution  which  Augustine  offered  in  the  Donatist  contro- 
versy in  regard  to  the  baptism  of  heretics.  Is  there  not 
some  ground  for  it  in  the  words  of  Christ,  'And  all  things 
whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  in  prayer,  believing,  ye  shall 
receive'?" 

To  Arthur  Thomas  he  wrote,  this  winter:  "You  will 
surely  know  without  my  telling  you  how  deeply  grieved  I 
have  been  to  learn  of  your  illness,  and  to  know  that  you 
have  been  forced  to  give  up  work  in  order  to  regain  your 
health.     I  have  thought  of  you  constantly.     I  am  one  of 

263 


264  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

those  who  believe  that  recuperative  power  lies  in  two 
directions:  in  the  care  of  the  body,  and  in  the  strengthen- 
ing of  the  inner  spirit  by  union  and  communion  with  the 
Divine  Being  in  whose  image  we  are  made,  whose  life 
circulates  in  our  life, — always  therefore  thinking  of  our- 
selves as  in  vital  touch  with  the  infinite  life,  locked  up  and 
supported  by  it,  resting  upon  it,  learning  what  is  called  the 
practice  of  the  Divine  Presence,  i.e.,  never  thinking  of  our- 
selves apart  from  God,  who  is  our  life  and  strength.  Must 
not  this  be  a  source  of  recuperation?  In  moments  of  de- 
pression or  isolation  recall  that  this  Infinite  Life  is  yours, 
close  to  you  and  within  you,  closer  than  breathing  and  nearer 
than  hands  and  feet.  In  this  conviction  I  am  looking  for 
your  recovery,  and  I  hope  the  days  will  not  prove  tedious 
in  which  you  wait  for  restoration.  ...  I  look  forward  to 
long  talks  in  the  study.     God  bless  and  keep  you." 

He  had  much  trouble  with  his  breathing  this  winter,  and 
remained  indoors  more  than  usual.  Pleasant  days  he  would 
take  his  afternoon  walk.  He  whimsically  complained  that 
Mrs.  Allen  dragged  him  out  a  great  deal,  and  when  she 
protested  that  it  was  seven  calls  in  six  months,  he  said, 
"Yes:  one  and  one-sixth  call  a  month,  or  one-fourth  call  a 
week."  He  was  fond  of  going  down  to  Harvard  Square, 
looking  in  at  the  shop  windows,  and  coming  home  with 
some  trifling  purchase,  such  as  an  ash  tray.  Never  was 
his  talk  more  lively,  and  the  quiet,  musical  voice  made  its 
irresistible  appeal  to  all  who  entered  the  study.  His 
laughter,  though  almost  silent,  was  never  merrier:  his 
whole  frame  shook  with  it.     He  was  very  happy. 

He  talked  of  his  favourite  hymns.  He  put  "Rock  of 
Ages"  first.  "You  know,"  he  said,  "I've  always  been  an 
Evangelical."  He  loved  Abelard's  Quanta  Qualia:  "It 
has  the  scholastic  ring."  Faber's  hymns  held  him  to  the 
end :  he  liked  their  note  of  personal  loyalty  to  Christ,  their 
frank  expression  of  emotion.  He  hated  "The  Church's 
One  Foundation"  as  vehemently  as  Archbishop  Temple 


TABLE  TALK  265 

disliked  it.  "They  always  sing  it  at  Conventions,"  he 
said;  "and  when  they  sing  'with  heresies  distrest,'  they 
look  at  me." 

He  laughed  at  Mrs.  Eddy  and  "the  next  friends";  but, 
reading  everything  about  Christian  Science,  pro  and  con, 
he  studied  its  revelations  of  character  and  type.  He  did 
not  sympathize  with  the  modern  interest  in  spiritualism. 
When  told  that  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  had  gone  over  to  it,  he 
replied,  "All  the  worse  for  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  To  me  the 
last  word  is  the  mystic  scene  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  when 
Christ  said  with  His  divine  solicitude,  '  Children,  have  ye 
any  meat?"'  Neither  could  he  understand  the  people 
who  rose  to  great  heights  in  time  of  deep  sorrow:  "I,"  he 
confessed,  "can  never  get  beyond  the  touch  of  the  vanished 
hand." 

He  helped  Mrs.  Allen  in  her  preparations  for  her  Bible 
class,  giving  her  definitions  such  as  these:  "Special  provi- 
dence is  God's  general  providence  revealed  to  the  individ- 
ual;" "Grace  is  God's  favour  to  the  undeserving;"  "Prayer 
is  union  with  the  Source  of  strength  —  when  we  get  that, 
it  is  a  small  matter  whether  petitions  are  answered  or  not." 
He  was  intensely  interested  in  all  the  modern  study  of  the 
New  Testament:  "If  the  document  Q  was  circulating  in 
the  year  50,"  he  reflected,  "how  different  it  is  from  St. 
Paul's  preaching.  To  find  the  relation  between  the  two  is 
the  important  thing.  The  Christian  message  came:  St. 
Paul  is  the  almost  perfect  response."  When  asked  about 
the  Talmud  he  replied  that  it  stood  to  Judaism  as  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  to  modern  Romanism.  When  the  conversa- 
tion fell  upon  the  headings  in  the  Authorized  Version  of 
the  Old  Testament,  such  as  "This  speaketh  of  the  Relation 
of  Christ  to  His  Church,"  he  looked  up  suddenly  and  said 
"It's  all  true,  too." 

Dr.  Allen  was  an  inspiration  to  many  laymen.  "I  felt 
his  catholic,  hospitable  spirit  very  much,"  said  Mr.  Joseph 
Lee,  "and  a  sense  of  many  chords  that  vibrated  when  he 


266  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

paused  and  smiled  before  answering  a  question.  His  view 
of  the  sacredness  of  the  State  was  tremendously  interesting 
to  me,  as  coming  from  the  other  side  from  mine."  His 
humour  was  a  delight  to  such  men  as  Mr.  Bliss  Perry;  and 
a  good  many  of  the  older  professional  men  of  Cambridge, 
including  several  Harvard  professors,  were  in  the  habit  of 
dropping  into  his  study  to  have  their  religious  views 
clarified.  No  man  was  ever  less  professional  in  his  deep 
emotion  and  aspiration  and  loyalty.  He  regretted  that 
the  modern  man  did  not  give  himself  to  family  prayers 
and  the  Bible,  as  his  ancestors  had  done;  "but  he  sits 
down  to  his  newspaper,"  he  said,  "and  studies  the  secular 
world — that  too  is  God's."  And  so  he  had  forbearance 
and  trust  when  the  layman  was  not  sure  that  he  was 
religious. 

He  changed  his  pew  in  St.  John's  Chapel  because  it  was 
too  near  the  font.  "When  I  think  of  all  the  children,"  he 
said,  "including  my  own  two  little  white  heads,  who  have 
been  brought  up  there,  the  pathos  of  it  all  is  too  much  for 
me."  Years  before,  when  his  younger  son  was  seeking  a 
subject  for  a  college  theme,  Dr.  Allen  had  suggested  "The 
Pathos  of  Little  Children's  Clothes."  He  never  spoke  of 
children  without  emotion  —  their  ridiculous  hats  with 
their  little  cockades,  their  pleasure  in  small  things,  their 
disappointments.  Affectation  in  any  part  of  life  was  bad 
enough;  in  religion  he  found  it  intolerable.  When  the 
Chapel  bell  rang,  just  at  the  close  of  breakfast,  he  would 
say,  with  amused  allusion  to  the  title  of  a  certain  religious 
book,  "Well,  it  ringeth  to  morning-song." 

He  had  a  New  England  conscience  in  spite  of  himself. 
The  telephone  rang  one  morning,  and  Mrs.  Allen  went  to 
answer  it.  "Don't,"  he  said;  but  it  was  too  late.  "There," 
he  added,  "it  is  Kellner  reminding  me  of  faculty  meeting, 
and  I  shall  have  to  go."  He  often  said  that  he  had  the 
Puritan  feeling  about  the  use  of  time,  but  not  of  money. 
When  the  bell  of  Dr.  MacKenzie's  church  rang  to  prayer- 


PURITANISM  267 

meeting  Friday  night,  he  would  say,  "There  goes  Mac- 
Kenzie's  bell:  what  a  hardening  effect  it  has  had  on  me  all 
these  years!"  His  boys  persuaded  him  once  to  go  to  the 
theatre  to  see  Willard  in  The  Middleman.  But  he  was 
uncomfortable:  he  felt  that  it  was  not  the  place  for  a 
clergyman. 

Yet  he  was  in  constant  revolt  against  the  Puritan  temper. 
He  had  been  disturbed  the  summer  before  by  the  talk  of 
the  railway  merger,  by  which  the  Boston  and  Maine 
system  should  be  ruled  from  New  York.  It  stood  to  him 
for  the  decadence  of  New  England.  "The  Puritan  mind," 
was  his  comment,  "does  not  take  up  large  schemes,  but 
devotes  itself  to  petty  reforms."  When  the  Puritans  were 
discussing  tainted  money,  he  at  once  fell  back  on  history: 
"The  Montanists  took  the  extreme  view  of  the  Church; 
but  the  Catholic  Church  decided  differently  —  and  it  was 
right."  He  talked  of  Anglicanism.  "The  old  'three- 
decker'  pulpit  was  truly  Anglican,"  said  he,  "proclaiming 
an  equal  prominence  to  preaching,  Sacrament,  and  reading 
of  the  Word."  One  day  he  gave  a  book  that  he  had  been 
reading  to  a  friend,  with  a  glowing  commendation.  Bring- 
ing it  back,  the  friend  slyly  remarked  that  he  had  found 
some  of  the  pages  uncut.  "Well,"  said  Dr.  Allen,  "this 
is  awkward:  the  Jesuits  have  a  way  when  they  come  to 
certain  subjects  of  saying,  'Let  this  subject  be  passed  over 
in  silence.'" 

It  irritated  him  to  hear  so  much  high-flown  talk  about 
anti-imperialism  and  peace  movements.  "There  isn't 
wisdom  enough  in  them  all,"  he  said,  "to  decide,  for 
instance,  whether  Germany  is  to  expand  or  not.     Where 

does  God  come  in?    But  Mrs. of  Boston  says  she  only 

has  to  organize  the  world  —  that's  all!" 

When  Mr.  Stead  was  reproaching  the  Church  with  not 
doing  more  for  universal  peace,  Dr.  Allen  said:  "The 
Church  is  permeated  with  the  idea  of  atonement,  that  you 
can't  have  anything  without  paying  for  it.    As  forgiveness 


268  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

can  only  be  won  by  cost,  so  with  national  freedom.  These 
peace  people  think  in  a  Unitarian  way  that  if  you  leave 
people  alone  to  buy  and  sell,  it  will  be  all  right.  But  we 
know  that  if  a  man  belongs  to  a  thing,  he  must  be  willing 
to  pay  for  it  with  his  life." 

It  was  arranged  during  the  spring  of  1908,  at  the  joint 
request  of  the  trustees  and  the  alumni,  that  Dr.  Allen's 
portrait  should  be  painted.  He  refused  at  first,  saying 
with  a  smile,  "Pusey  would  never  have  his  portrait  painted 
—  and  Pusey  was  a  great  man.  Neither  would  Plotinus." 
He  afterwards  consented,  but  the  time  for  the  sittings 
never  was  fixed. 

He  had  a  bronchial  cough,  but  recovered,  and  met  his 
students  as  usual  when  the  Easter  term  opened.  He  had 
all  the  old  zest.  Men  recalled  such  sayings  as  these: 
"Plato  was  a  New  England  Transcendentalist,  Aristotle 
was  a  High  Churchman;  "  "  Scotus  was  a  great  heretic,  but 
he  was  so  profound  that  the  Church  didn't  find  it  out  for 
two  hundred  years;"  "Gnosticism  with  its  emanations  was 
like  the  street  lamps  on  Beacon  street  —  each  one  getting 
more  and  more  faint;"  "So  they  condemned  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia  to  join  the  select  company  of  Origen  in  hell;" 

"L thinks  the  whole  question  of  the  Person  of  Christ 

ought  to  be  discussed  all  over  again  —  that  would  be  a 
good  thing,  but  I  think  the  councils  did  pretty  well  on  that 
question;"  "We  ought  to  judge  men  by  the  kind  of  man 
they  want  to  be;"  "Justification  by  faith  is  the  great  doc- 
trine. You  men  don't  understand  it  now,  and  some  of  you 
don't  like  it;  but  by  and  by  you'll  preach  nothing  else." 

Just  before  their  canonical  examinations  he  coached  the 
Seniors,  speaking  to  them  for  nearly  three  hours  contin- 
uously about  the  first  three  centuries.  An  old  graduate, 
Theodosius  Tyng,  who  chanced  to  be  present,  said  that  he 
never  had  heard  anything  so  masterly  as  the  way  he 
separated  and  related  all  the  lines  of  thought  and  action. 

And  then,  on  May  1,  came  the  first  serious  illness  of 


CHURCH  UNITY  269 

his  life.  His  heart,  which  had  been  weak  for  years,  almost 
failed  him.  For  days,  in  his  unconsciousness,  it  was 
thought  that  he  could  not  live.  He  gradually  grew  better, 
and  as  he  came  to  himself  he  read  and  talked  and  did  much 
thinking;  and  he  responded  to  the  May  sunshine.  "Evan- 
gelical fervour,"  he  said,  one  day,  laughing,  "wore  people 
out  early.  Neither  Dr.  Stone  nor  Dr.  Vinton  did  any 
work  after  fifty.  They  excused  themselves  by  saying  that 
the  world  was  hard  for  the  Gospel."  A  member  of  the 
family  came  home  one  of  the  days  of  convalescence  from  a 
lecture  on  Buddhism,  confessing  that  this  type  of  religion 
made  no  appeal.  "Why  should  it?"  he  said.  "The 
Church  fought  that  type  of  religion  in  Gnosticism.  It  is 
an  anodyne  for  despairing  people.  It  never  has  taken 
hold  of  any  nation  that  has  amounted  to  anything."  He 
dipped  into  favourite  books,  among  them  Richard  Rothe: 
"I  read  it  to  refresh  my  Protestantism,"  he  said.  He 
talked  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  and  spoke  of  one  of 
Rossetti's  girls  as  a  girl  with  everything  essential  left  out,  — 
that  is,  religious  faith.  "They  went  back,"  he  said,  "to 
Botticelli,  who  had  lost  faith.  The  movement  expressed  a 
mood  of  yearning  of  the  nineteenth  century."  One  Sunday 
afternoon  when  Mrs.  Allen  was  covering  him  up  to  take  a 
nap,  she  asked  him  when  a  nap  became  part  of  the  Sunday 
ritual.  "Oh,  very  early,"  he  replied:  "the  monks  called 
it  weariness  of  the  world." 

At  the  suggestion  of  the  Rev.  Newman  Smyth,  A.  P. 
Stokes,  a  graduate,  wrote  to  Dr.  Allen  asking  him  how 
Phillips  Brooks  felt  about  plans  for  Church  unity.  Dr. 
Allen  wrote  his  reply  with  a  lead  pencil,  May  25:  "If  my 
impression  is  true,  Brooks  took  no  interest  whatever  in  the 
subject  of  Christian  unity  when  approached  from  an  eccle- 
siastical side,  as,  e.g.,  in  the  Chicago-Lambeth  platform. 
That  is  putting  it  rather  mildly  too.  It  irritated  him  as  if 
assuming  that  when  the  Christian  faith  had  proved  a  fail- 
ure in  its  normal  presentation,  it  could  be  made  to  work  by 


270  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

ecclesiastical  adjustments.  Hence  his  tone  on  the  subject 
was  apt  to  be  severe,  like  Isaiah's  denouncing  a  'confed- 
eracy.' Where  or  when  or  how  he  had  worked  out  the 
subject  for  himself  with  such  positive  emphasis,  I  found  no 
evidence.  .  .  .  His  idea  was  that  Christian  unity  existed, 
and  only  awaited  manifestation.  He  availed  himself  of  every 
method  and  opportunity,  and  there  he  stopped.  He  would 
have  gone  further,  but  recognized  prejudices.  These  were 
to  be  overcome  by  Christian  charity,  and  by  a  truer,  larger 
presentation  of  Christ.  Once  get  Him,  and  the  divisions 
would  lose  their  separating  power.  ...  I  must  not  write 
more.  I  have  been  ill,  so  they  say,  but  I  am  much  better. 
.  .  .  Anything  you  write  about  interests  me,  but  I  am 
afraid  I  do  not  sympathize  on  this  point.  It  is  a  much 
larger  subject  and  it  goes  deeper  into  life  and  history  than 
those  often  think  who  fancy  it  is  an  easy  thing  to  make 
adjustments." 

On  May  29  he  wrote  to  another  pupil:  "The  portrait  will 
not  be  done  for  Commencement,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that 
I  shall  be  absent  as  well  as  you.  I  have  been  quite  ill, 
confined  to  my  room  for  a  month,  but  I  am  much  better 
and  hope  to  go  downstairs  to-morrow  to  the  long  neglected 
study.  I  have  done  a  good  deal  of  thinking  and  consider- 
able reading  during  this  strange  month  of  illness.  Some  of 
it,  of  course,  has  been  rather  inconsequent,  as  when  I  ex- 
pounded to  one  of  the  night  nurses  the  necessity  of  getting 
you  to  edit  some  recently  discovered  MS.  of  Origen!" 

At  Commencement  time  Dr.  Allen  was  able  to  see  one 
or  two  of  the  older  men  in  his  study,  but  it  was  whispered 
about  among  the  alumni  that  he  probably  never  would  be 
able  to  take  up  his  teaching  again.  And  so  it  flashed 
through  the  minds  of  his  friends  and  pupils  what  he  had 
stood  for: — 

He  had  asked  one  day  at  home  for  the  definition  of  a 
paradox;  and  was  told  that  he  himself  was  the  best  known 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  271 

example.  Never  was  a  man  more  docile:  he  loved  to 
follow.  Now  it  was  Maurice,  now  it  was  Brooks,  and 
always  it  was  Coleridge.  "Coleridge  had  something  to  do 
with  this,"  he  said  of  a  great  happiness  towards  the  end, 
"as  he  has  had  to  do  with  every  important  event  in  my  life." 
And  yet  he  could  be  the  most  aggressive  and  independent 
of  men:  leading  far  ahead  and  quite  alone.  He  was  at 
once  a  recluse  and  a  soldier.  In  all  his  tastes  and  sympa- 
thies, in  his  sensitiveness  and  reserve,  he  was  an  aristocrat; 
but  from  principle  and  conviction  he  was  a  thorough  demo- 
crat. He  sometimes  seemed  as  innocent  of  business  as  a 
baby,  he  could  not  strike  a  bargain  or  remember  how  legal 
papers  should  be  filled  out;  and  then,  at  other  times,  he 
would  be  as  practical  and  keen  as  a  banker:  Professor 
Palmer  said  that  he  often  consulted  him  about  men  who 
had  been  under  him,  and  he  never  knew  his  judgment  to 
be  mistaken;  Bishop  Lawrence,  too,  constantly  consulted 
him,  and  found  it  wise  to  accept  his  counsel  in  difficult 
places.  In  conversation  he  was  curious  to  learn  other 
men's  opinions,  but  with  delicate-footed  caution  was 
tenacious  of  his  own:  he  could  not  quickly  get  out  of  his 
scheme.  The  style  of  his  books  was  shy  and  careful, 
almost  timid;  the  centre  of  his  books  was  always  venture- 
some, original,  audacious.  He  was  devoted  to  persons: 
history  and  life  seemed  to  him  a  pageant  of  lovable  and 
masterful  and  silly  and  wicked  people,  awaiting  praise  or 
condemnation;  and  then  the  days  would  come  when  he 
spoke  only  of  abstract  problems,  as  if  he  cared  for  nothing 
else.  He  loved  and  craved  love;  but  he  was  perpetually 
holding  people  at  a  distance,  bluffing  them  with  his  sly 
and  clerkly  humour,  so  that  they  went  away  quite  ignorant 
of  his  true  enthusiasm.  He  was  all  on  fire  for  the  supreme 
truths  he  found  enshrined  in  the  life  of  the  Church;  but 
he  could  be  as  cold  as  ice  towards  what  men  proclaimed  to 
him  as  the  great  Christian  movement  of  the  hour  — 
Church  Unity,  Psychic  Research,  Cathedrals,  or  Psycho- 


272  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

therapy.  When  Psychotherapy  was  making  its  first  vic- 
tories, he  said  of  one  of  his  old  pupils,  "I  hope  he  won't 
take  up  this  thing  —  he  can  make  a  success  of  the  legitimate 
ministry."  He  had  unlimited  confidence  in  the  funda- 
mental work  of  a  clergyman,  and  a  horror  of  what  he 
called  fads.  So  men  said  that  he  had  limitations.  Con- 
tempt played  a  large  part  in  his  life;  yet  when  one  went 
deeper  into  knowledge  of  him,  one  found  unutterable 
compassion,  tenderness,  patience.     He  was  a  paradox. 

He  was  not  a  worshipper  of  consistency.  He  had  warm 
affection  and  respect  for  his  many  friends  among  "the 
dissenters,"  as  he  playfully  called  them.  Yet  he  always 
laughed  when  he  quoted  Jeremy  Taylor's  saying  that  a 
man  could  not  be  a  Presbyterian  and  a  gentleman.  He 
would  have  been  indignant  if  a  modern  bishop  had  said  it. 
The  people  that  most  aroused  him  were  narrow  Unitarians, 
who  made  a  boast  of  liberalism,  and  then  scoffed  at  all 
positive  faith,  being  tolerant  only  of  negations  and  denials. 
"They  have  made  religion  so  reasonable,"  he  said,  "that 
nobody  can  believe  it."  A  certain  rabbi  rasped  his  nerves. 
"Some  day,"  said  Dr.  Allen,  "there  will  be  Anti-Semitism 
in  this  country,  and  it  will  be  the  fault  of  the  Jews  — 
chiefly  of  Rabbi  X."  Or,  again  he  would  say,  "Rabbi  X, 
in  his  peregrinations  about  the  country  —  which  are  not 
nearly  so  important  as  he  thinks  they  are  —  is  fond  of 
addressing  Unitarians  and  telling  them  that  they  stand  on 
the  same  ground.  And  they  don't  like  it."  Once  his 
sister  spoke  of  some  bigoted  Seventh  Day  Baptists,  hinting 
that  they  would  make  good  High  Churchmen.  He  was 
quite  vehement,  saying,  "They  would  make  the  worst 
possible  kind."  Then  he  added  gently,  "But  they  have  a 
great  deal  on  their  side  historically  —  and  how  some  peo- 
ple do  love  to  be  persecuted!"  At  another  time  he  said, 
"It's  my  limitation  —  I  don't  care  for  Moody.  I  haven't 
yet  forgotten  my  indignation  at  being  asked  about  my 
personal  religion  at  a  revival  when  I  was  a  boy."    Yet  at  a 


AN  INTERPRETER  OF  FACTS  273 

hotel  where  the  proprietor  held  extremely  informal  reli- 
gious services  each  morning,  he  would  go  to  them,  admit- 
ting, "I'm  afraid  I  like  them  in  spite  of  their  crudeness: 
the  truth  is,  any  kind  of  sincere  religion  appeals  to  me." 
But  of  all  "dissenters"  the  Quakers  were  nearest  his  heart. 
There  was  something  in  their  mood  akin  to  his  own.  He 
had  once  thought  of  having  a  book-plate  made,  using  a 
detail  from  Raphael's  Transfiguration;  namely,  the  heads 
of  St.  John  and  St.  Peter  —  St.  John  eager  to  receive 
without  question,  St.  Peter  waiting  for  proof.  It  was  the 
contradictory  story  of  his  own  soul  —  the  eager,  child-like 
trust  linked  with  the  philosopher's  inquiring  spirit.  It  is 
one  secret  why  he  won  the  confidence  of  intelligent  youth. 
It  explains  why  he  could  say  that  if  he  had  not  been  a 
Churchman,  he  would  have  liked  to  be  a  Quaker. 

What  place  his  pupils  could  give  him  as  an  historian  is 
as  difficult  to  tell  now  as  it  was  in  those  first  days  when 
they  felt  that  his  active  fife  was  done.  Certainly  he  was 
not  a  chronicler  of  facts.  He  treated  facts,  it  seemed  to 
some,  rather  cavalierly  at  times.  He  did  not  mean  to  do 
so,  but  the  criticism  would  not  have  much  disturbed  him. 
It  was  not  his  function  to  test  facts,  much  as  he  respected 
the  man  who  gave  himself  to  that  task.  His  function,  we 
may  safely  say,  was  rarer:  it  was  to  detect  the  significance 
of  facts,  to  discover  the  ruling  idea  of  an  age,  and  to  relate 
this  principle  to  the  group  of  facts  lying  about  it.  That 
his  generalizations  should  in  every  case  prove  sound  is  too 
much  to  hope  of  any  human  effort.  That  many  of  them 
have  borne  the  stamp  of  true  prophecy  is  shown  by  their 
appropriation  by  the  teachers  of  teachers,  whether  writers 
or  instructors  or  preachers,  men  of  the  calibre  of  John 
Fiske  and  Phillips  Brooks,  till  opinions,  first  received  with 
hostility,  are  now  generally  accepted  by  the  most  cautious. 
The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  judged  by  its  ultimate 
influence  on  the  thought  of  the  Church,  indirectly  and 
directly,  is  his  most  significant  book.  The  technical  his- 
19 


274  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

torian  would  doubtless  put  Christian  Institutions  before 
it,  as  a  more  thorough  work;  but  technical  judges  must 
give  way  before  the  verdict  of  actual  influence.  Both 
books  must  continue  to  be  read  as  contributions  to  theo- 
logical thought,  each  having  the  power  of  originality.  The 
Jonathan  Edwards  seems  likely  to  be  the  permanent  esti- 
mate of  one  with  whose  theology  his  biographer  had  little 
sympathy  —  as  remarkable  for  appreciation  as  for  criti- 
cism. It  seems  unlikely  that  Dr.  Allen's  Life  of  Brooks 
will  be  superseded.  Of  Freedom  in  the  Church,  as  a  volume 
to  be  read  in  the  future,  it  is  impossible  to  speak.  As  time 
goes  on,  the  main  thesis  of  the  book  will  gain  a  hearing  in 
some  form.     That  is  certain. 

Dr.  Allen's  severest  critics  in  later  years  were  not  con- 
servative, but  radical,  theologians.  Christmas-eve,  1897, 
Dr.  G.  A.  Gordon  wrote  to  Dr.  Allen:  "I  go  to  all  your 
words  with  an  eagerness  and  an  expectation  wholly  excep- 
tional, and  I  find  my  spirit  spoken  to  by  you  on  the  deep 
things  of  the  Christian  Faith,  as  it  is  spoken  to  by 
almost  no  other  man."  November  21,  1908,  Dr.  Gordon 
wrote  to  a  common  friend:  "He  did  not  meet  issues  boldly 
and  frankly,  e.g.,  his  latest  book.  He  grew  extremely  fan- 
ciful in  a  good  deal  of  his  work;  and  he  showed  less  and 
less  sympathy  with  the  men  who  are  thinking  out  the 
present  problems  of  the  Christian  mind."  Those  are 
evidently  honest  opinions,  separated  by  a  period  of  less 
than  eleven  years.  The  explanation  must  come  in  Dr. 
Allen's  devotion  to  the  institution  of  the  Church.  What 
the  Church  had  found  valuable  enough  to  proclaim  its 
faith  in,  and  had  lived  by  for  a  long  period,  was  worthy 
of  special  credence.  That  was  one  of  his  tests  of  truth. 
From  the  college  days  when  he  found  fault  with  Bishop 
Mcllvaine  and  Bishop  Bedell  because  they  did  not  know 
why  they  were  not  Presbyterians,  Dr.  Allen  was  a  strong 
Churchman.  And  one  of  the  last  words  he  wrote  was  a 
word  upon  this  very  subject:  "Salvation  is  not  an  indi- 


A  PROTESTANT  CHURCHMAN  275 

vidual  thing:  it  is  only  accomplished  by  the  fellowship  of 
the  Church.  The  principle  of  association  enters  into  the 
religion  of  Christ  as  an  essential  factor.  The  spirit  which 
saves  men  is  a  spirit  of  holy  fellowship  which  seeks  to 
unite  them  more  closely  together.  It  is  essentially  a  spirit 
of  love,  and  not  of  selfishness  or  division."  He  did  not 
grant  the  right  of  a  Christian  man  to  begin  Christian 
history  anew,  judging  on  a  priori  grounds  what  was  satis- 
factory to  him.  And  yet  he  often  called  himself  an  indi- 
vidualist. He  disliked  the  modern  way  of  having  houses 
with  rooms  all  opening  into  one  another.  "It  is,"  he 
said,  "part  of  the  socialistic  modern  tendency:  I  am  an 
individualist  —  I  like  2,  Phillips  Place,  where  each  room  is 
separate."  In  the  same  way  he  liked  the  pew-system  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  where  the  family  could  assert  its 
separation  from  the  other  families  of  the  parish.  He  was 
a  Churchman,  but  a  Protestant  Churchman;  and  he 
underscored,  in  his  own  mind,  both  words.  With  this 
instinctive  characteristic  he  made  his  way  through  history. 
He  never  rejected  any  truth  which  good  men  held  sacred :  if 
it  seemed  to  him  inadequate,  he  found  some  larger  truth, 
into  which  he  could  carry  the  partial  truth.  Some  men 
around  him  were  Churchmen  only,  accepting  what  was  to 
them  unintelligible  and  meaningless  on  the  ground  of  a 
cold  authority;  others  were  merely  Protestants,  denying 
freely  whatever  for  the  moment  displeased  their  present 
conceptions  and  needs.  He  was  a  Protestant  Churchman; 
and  so  won  the  hostile  criticism  of  both  Churchmen  and 
Protestants.  Once  more  he  was  a  paradox;  even,  as  one 
of  his  pupils  said,  the  high-priest  of  paradox. 

But  those  who  knew  Dr.  Allen  only  in  books  did  not 
know  him  at  his  best.  Even  those  who  heard  him  lecture 
at  the  Union  Seminary  or  in  some  Harvard  hall  did  not 
know  his  real  power.  This  power  he  revealed  to  the  few 
men  whom  year  by  year  he  taught  in  the  Theological 
School.     Men  who  had  sat  under  Harnack  and  William 


276  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

James  and  the  other  great  teachers  of  the  day  always  said 
that  they  had  never  known  such  a  teacher  as  Dr.  Allen. 
"Those  who  sat  at  his  feet  in  the  days  of  his  strength," 
wrote  E.  T.  Sullivan,  "can  never  forget  the  inspiration  of 
those  hours  in  his  lecture  room.  He  would  bring  out,  by 
questioning,  a  mass  of  confusing  facts,  and  then  he  had  a 
characteristic  way  of  saying:  'Now  there  are  two  remarks 
to  be  made  about  all  this.'  And  he  would  throw  out  a 
great  principle  which,  like  the  flash  of  a  powerful  search- 
light on  a  dark  night,  lighted  up  the  events  of  the  period 
and  showed  what  they  all  meant.  And  while  the  mind 
was  tingling  with  satisfaction,  and  revelling  in  that  keen 
pleasure  which  comes  from  the  impact  of  illuminating  ideas, 
he  would  formulate  his  second  'remark,'  usually  a  comple- 
mentary principle,  showing  what  the  students  had  not 
noticed,  that  the  first  flash  had  lighted  up  only  one  side  of 
the  facts,  and  that  the  two  principles  were  needed  to  re- 
solve the  seeming  inconsistency  of  the  story.  This  method 
kept  the  minds  before  him  in  a  state  of  expectation,  eager- 
ness, and  wonder.  It  had  also  another  effect.  It  made 
the  students  master  the  facts  of  the  history  beforehand. 
His  task  was  to  illuminate  them;  to  interpret  their  sig- 
nificance to  the  period,  and  to  indicate  the  value  of  the 
principle  for  all  times.  .  .  .  He  had  a  curious  habit  of 
turning  away  from  himself  and  towards  the  students  the 
face  of  the  little  clock  on  the  desk.  They  might  watch  the 
minutes  of  that  hour  if  they  chose.  He  was  dealing  with 
the  ages.  And  he  was  always  surprised  by  the  stroke  of 
the  bell.  .  .  .  Some  of  his  lectures  on  the  Doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  left  his  students  almost  breathless  at  times,  and 
they  went  silently  out  as  from  a  religious  service." 

The  quality  of  his  method,  which  was  often  criticized  in 
his  books,  became  his  chief  asset  as  a  teacher.  The  fact 
that  he  was  not,  first  of  all,  an  anxious  investigator  of  the 
actual  course  of  events,  but  a  kind  of  original  speculator 
upon  the  past  workings  of  the  human  mind,  gave  him 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  TEACHER    277 

power  to  stimulate,  awaken,  and  inspire  his  pupils.  He 
made  them  study  the  facts  to  test  his  principles;  and  his 
suggestiveness  created  in  them  the  imagination  to  look  for 
meaning  and  purpose  and  God  in  all  history.  He  did  not 
command  books  to  be  read;  but  after  giving  his  list  for  a 
certain  period,  he  would  add,  "You  will  look  these  up  if  you 
are  interested."  His  business  he  felt  was  to  make  men 
interested.  He  confessed  to  a  teacher  once  that  he  kept 
his  eye  through  the  lecture  on  the  one  or  two  men  who  were 
ablest  in  the  class.  If  their  attention  flagged,  he  changed 
the  topic  or  his  method  of  presenting  it.  But  the  bond  of 
sympathy  was  so  close  that  he  was  almost  never  forced  to 
do  this,  though  he  never  ceased  his  watchfulness.  Part  of 
his  hold  on  men  came  from  the  intense  personal  feeling  he 
had  for  the  figures  in  history.  When  he  said,  "I  like 
Gregory  Nazianzen,"  men  knew  that  it  was  not  the 
theologian's  approval,  but  the  love  of  a  friend.  It  was  the 
same  with  Clement:  "He  was  such  a  gentleman,"  Dr. 
Allen  said  one  night  in  his  study.  The  men,  perforce, 
shared  his  own  emotion  when  he  told  of  the  last  of  the 
Humanists,  Minucius  Felix,  who  described  his  walk  along 
the  curving  shore  of  Ostia,  the  sinking  of  his  feet  in  the 
sands,  the  crisp  little  waves  running  up  the  beach  and 
making  smooth  again  his  footprints,  the  boys  skipping 
stones,  the  beauty  of  the  evening;  then  the  students  felt 
as  their  own  his  regret  that  all  this  pleasure  in  the  beauty 
of  the  world  was  to  fade  for  many  generations.  He  con- 
fessed privately  that  he  never  entered  on  this  time  of  the 
Dark  Ages  without  a  feeling  of  depression.  And  his  relief 
on  reaching  the  Renaissance  was  also  contagious.  "When 
at  last  the  yoke  of  the  Latin  tongue  was  broken,"  he  said, 
"all  the  world  was  singing  of  love." 

It  was  more  than  mere  interest  that  he  gave  his  men. 
"You  would  come  to  his  class,"  said  one  of  his  pupils,  "  and 
he  would,  let  us  say,  begin  to  talk  about  the  Novatians. 
Up  to  that  time  you  had  probably  not  heard  that  there 


278  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

were  such  people  as  Novatians.  Dr.  Allen  would  explain  their 
significance,  and  add,  'But  there  is  one  point  about  them 
still  unexplained,  a  very  important  point,  one  that  should 
be  cleared  up.'  You  would  then  go  out  of  the  class  feeling 
that  the  most  important  thing  for  the  welfare  of  the  Church 
was  that  this  point  about  the  Novatians  should  be  cleared 
up,  and  that  probably  you  were  the  man  to  do  it."  That 
would  seem  to  all  his  pupils  thoroughly  characteristic.  He 
believed  in  his  men  in  such  a  way  that  they  believed  in 
themselves.  They  saw  visions  of  what  they  might  do,  and 
they  dared  to  try.  And  yet  he  was  no  blind  enthusiast. 
One  day  he  asked  a  student  if  he  had  read' a  certain  book. 
The  man  said,  "Yes";  whereupon  Dr.  Allen  began  to 
question  him  about  it.     When  only  ignorance  was  shown, 

Dr.    Allen   said   softly,    "You   say,   Mr.  ,  that  you 

have  read  this  book?"  "Yes,"  was  the  answer.  "Ah, 
well,"  was  the  sweet  rejoinder,  "that  is  all  that  is  nec- 
essary." 

One  element  of  attraction  in  his  personal  talk  and  in  his 
lectures  came  from  his  humour.  It  was  of  the  inde- 
finable sort  which  does  not  depend  on  funny  stories  or 
smartness.  It  took  odd  ways  to  itself.  For  example,  he 
liked  to  talk  with  people  as  though  they  were  deeply  inter- 
ested in  subjects  quite  out  of  their  line.  He  once  found 
himself  in  a  summer  hotel  with  a  Harvard  professor  and 
his  wife  who  boasted  that  they  did  not  believe  in  anything. 
"I  loved  to  talk  with  them,"  he  said,  "as  though  they  were 
profoundly  interested  in  the  state  of  the  Church,  and 
especially  foreign  missions."     A  student  came  to  him  one 

day  to  tell  him  that  he  had  declined  a  call  to  N . 

"Well,"  he  said,  "you  made  a  great  mistake.  All  you  need 
have  done  was  to  have  sat  there  and  waited,  for  Common- 
wealth Avenue  runs  right  out  there,  and  Boston  would  thus 
in  time  have  reached  you."  It  amused  him  to  explain 
people.  He  was  fond  of  William  James,  and  said  one  day 
that  he  had  the  clue   to  him:  "He  was  brought  up  a 


HUMOUR  279 

Swendenborgian  and  got  the  visions.  Then  he  got  a  scien- 
tific training,  and  tried  to  reconcile  visions  to  science  through 
psychology."  Some  one  said  to  him,  "I  don't  like  that 
Evangelical  saying,  'If  hearts  were  uncovered,  our  dearest 
would  shrink  from  us' — wouldn't  'our  dearest'  be  as 
badly  off  as  we,  and  the  'shrinking'  be  mutual?"  "I 
suppose  so,"  he  answered;  and  then  he  went  on,  in  a  mus- 
ing fashion  as  if  finding  ways  to  make  the  principle  general, 
"If  all  men's  minds  were  uncovered  —  there  would  be  a 
great  deal  of  nothing  disclosed."  It  was  the  courtesy  and 
gentleness  and  scholar's  dignity,  mingled  with  the  amused 
sense  of  human  foibles,  which  gave  his  humour  its  peculiar 
flavour.  Men  sometimes  felt  that  his  love  of  grace  gained 
a  tyrannous  hold  over  him,  making  him  so  cautious  and 
considerate  as  to  take  the  bold  edge  off  his  manners.  It  is 
true  there  was  nothing  abrupt  in  his  written  style  or  in  his 
conversation :  a  certain  sense  of  wholeness  prevented.  This 
too  was  part  of  his  humour. 

Much  of  Dr.  Allen's  charm  was  in  his  face  and  his  voice. 
"His  face  always  appealed  to  me,"  a  Harvard  student  said, 
"though  I  did  not  know  him  personally:  it  was  full  of 
sweetness  and  reserve  power."  And  the  voice  was  one  of 
those  rare  voices  which  once  heard  can  never  be  forgotten. 
It  was  like  music,  natural,  reverent,  vibrant.  It  was 
suited  for  the  small  lecture  room  of  the  School  and  for 
personal  talk:  for  large  spaces  it  was  quite  inadequate. 
Behind  both  face  and  voice  was  a  strong  will,  which  only 
those  who  were  closest  understood.  He  would  drop  a 
habit  and  make  another,  adapting  himself  with  such  ease 
that  it  seemed  only  a  natural  preference.  He  would  after- 
wards confess  that  he  maintained  the  new  course  only  by 
constant  effort,  never  allowing  himself  to  look  back.  And 
behind  the  will  was  the  inspiration  that  gave  him  control. 
He  was  once  trying  to  define  religious  attitudes  for  a  Jewess : 
"Do  you  love  Moses?"  he  asked.  "Love?"  she  faltered; 
"scarcely  that:  we  Jews  reverence  Moses."     "Well,"  said 


280  HAPPINESS  AND  PEACE 

Dr.  Allen,  "that  is  the  difference:  we  Christians  love  Jesus 
Christ." 

"That  his  students,"  said  Bishop  Lawrence,  "  should 
agree  with  him  was  of  incidental  moment;  but  that  they 
should  be  open-minded,  lovers  of  the  truth,  and  loyal  minis- 
ters of  the  Church  which  he  loved  and  which  he  believed 
to  be  the  purest  interpreter  of  the  truth,  was  his  chief 
desire.  Results  have  justified  his  methods.  I  doubt  if 
any  teacher  of  Church  History  or  Theology  in  our  day  has 
seen  a  larger  proportion  of  his  students  remain  through  life 
loyal  to  their  Church  and  Ministry." 

Thoughts  like  these  passed  swiftly  through  the  minds  of 
his  grateful  pupils  as  they  faced  the  prospect  of  losing  him 
from  the  School.  But  they  dreamed  that  by  cherishing 
his  health,  by  southern  winters,  and  by  freedom  from  pub- 
lic talk,  he  might  still  be  their  adviser,  he  might  even  write 
some  of  the  books  he  had  wished  to  write,  on  New  England 
Theology,  or  on  the  Reformation. 

The  earlier  part  of  June  he  seemed  to  be  gaining  strength. 
He  was  interested  in  all  that  was  passing  in  the  outer  world 
—  in  the  moving  of  Andover  Seminary  to  Cambridge,  which 
he  deeply  regretted,  in  Bishop  Brent's  election  to  the 
Diocese  of  Washington,  for  which  Dr.  Allen  thought  him 
peculiarly  fitted,  in  Mr.  Taft's  nomination,  and  in  Mr. 
Cleveland's  illness.  He  spoke  of  the  glorification  of  the 
Roman  Catholics  in  New  York,  and  of  the  insinuations  of 
certain  people  that  Protestantism  was  a  failure.  "Mean- 
time," he  commented,  "no  one  seems  to  be  saying  any- 
thing of  the  great  Protestant  State  which  has  been  built 
up  by  Protestant  principles  and  which  has  made  the  work 
of  the  Roman  Catholics  possible."  He  wrote  one  or  two 
letters.  He  had  been  asked  to  be  one  of  the  seventy  friends 
to  share  in  a  gift  for  Dr.  William  R.  Huntington  on  his 
seventieth  birthday,  and  he  began  a  letter  saying  how 
gladly  he  would    do    this  —  but   the    letter    was    never 


SURSUM  CORDA 


281 


finished,  and  he  never  wrote  again.  This  was  June 
seventeenth. 

Then  his  illness  became  acute  again.  Almost  to  the  end 
he  talked  of  the  things  that  had  always  been  dearest  to 
him.  "People  now,"  he  said,  "are  taking  much  more 
interest  in  religion  than  in  science.  .  .  .  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  Natural  Religion  —  it  is  all  revealed.  ...  I  am 
hopeful  about  the  world  because  of  its  interest  in  the  Person 
of  Christ."  He  asked  Miss  Allen  if  his  mother  did  not 
have  to  stay  in  the  house  in  the  winter,  and  confessed  to 
her  that  the  last  winter  had  been  very  hard  for  him, 
because  of  his  breathing.  Delirium  came  on;  but  still,  in 
his  unconsciousness,  he  talked  of  Church  History,  saying 
many  times,  "  Harmony  in  the  Church."  And  on  the  first 
day  of  July  he  fell  asleep. 

Cambridge  was  deserted,  and  his  pupils  were  scattered 
upon  their  holidays.  But  a  little  group  of  trustees,  col- 
leagues, and  old  pupils  gathered  in  St.  John's  Chapel. 
During  the  service  the  choir  sang  St.  Bernard's  hymn,  — 

"Jesus,  the  very  thought  of  Thee 
With  sweetness  fills  the  breast; 
But  sweeter  far  Thy  face  to  see, 
And  in  Thy  presence  rest." 

At  the  grave  in  Mt.  Auburn  an  old  pupil  said  the  last 
words,  as  the  birds  sang  among  the  trees  in  the  hot  July 
noontide,  and  as  a  train  rumbled  by.  The  world  did  not 
understand,  but  those  who  had  known  him  did  understand. 
It  seemed  as  if  a  beloved  voice  had  said,  "Lift  up  your 
hearts."  And  from  hearts  in  which  he  had  kindled  deeper 
faith  in  Christ  came  the  due  response,  "We  lift  them  up 
unto  the  Lord." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BOOKS 

"Continuity  of  Christian  Thought;  A  Study  of  Modern  Theol- 
ogy in  the  Light  of  its  History."  Boston:  Houghton, 
Mifflin,  &  Co.;  London:  Ward,  Lock,  &  Co.,  1884. 

"Jonathan  Edwards."  Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.; 
Edinburgh:  T.  &  T.  Clark,  1889. 

"Religious    Progress."    Boston:    Houghton,    Mifflin,    &    Co., 

1894. 
"Christian   Institutions."    [In    the   International   Theological 

Library.]    New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons;  Edinburgh: 

T.  &  T.  Clark,  1897. 

"Life  and  Letters  of  Phillips  Brooks."  [First  edition  in  two 
volumes;  subsequent  editions  in  three  volumes;  a  special 
edition  in  five.]  New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.;  London: 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  1900. 

"Freedom  in  the  Church:  or  the  Doctrine  of  Christ  as  this 
Church  hath  received  the  Same  according  to  the  Command- 
ments of  God."    New  York:  The  Macmillan  Co.,  1907. 

"Phillips  Brooks,  1835-1893."  New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  & 
Co.,  1907. 

II 

ESSAYS   AND   ARTICLES 

"The  Relation  of  Parishes  to  the  Diocese  and  of  Dioceses  to  the 
General  Convention  in  Matters  of  Jurisdiction  and  Repre- 
sentation." Report  of  the  Church  Congress  for  1881:  T. 
Whittaker,  1882. 

283 


284  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"The  Theological  Renaissance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century." 
Princeton  Review,  November,  1882,  and  January,  1883. 

"Elisha  Mulford."    Christian  Union,  March  11,  1886. 

"The  Approach  to  Christian  Union."    Independent,  March  29, 

1888. 
"Christian   Union."    Independent,   March   20,    1889. 
"Dr.  George  Zabriskie  Gray."     The  Church  of  To-day,  August, 

1889. 

"The  Church  of  England,"  "Episcopacy,"  "Episcopal  Church 
in  the  United  States,"  "Reformed  Episcopal  Church." 
[Articles  in  "Concise  Dictionary  of  Religious  Knowledge." 
New  York:  Christian  Literature  Company,  1889.] 

"Recollections  of  Kenyon  under  President  Andrews's  Adminis- 
tration." The  Kenyon  Book,  edited  by  William  B.  Bodine. 
Columbus,  Ohio:  Nitschke  Brothers,  1890. 

"The  Norman  Period  of  the  English  Church."  [In  "The 
Church  in  the  British  Isles."]  New  York:  E.  &  J.  B.  Young 
&  Co.,  1890. 

"Life  at  Cambridge"— a  chapter  in  Francis  Wharton,  A 
Memoir.    Philadelphia,  1891. 

"The  Transition  in  New  England  Theology."    Atlantic  Monthly, 

December,   1891. 
"Bishop  White."    Christian  Union,  January  14,  1893. 
"Phillips  Brooks."    Atlantic  Monthly,  April,  1893. 
"Dean   Stanley  and  the  Tractarian   Movement."    The  New 

World,  1894. 
"Sundays  in  Edinburgh."     The  Outlook,  August  31,  1895. 
"Samuel   Taylor    Coleridge."    Atlantic   Monthly,    September, 

1895. 
"The  Pope's  Bull."     The  Outlook,  November  7,  1896. 

"Frederick  Denison  Maurice."  [In  "Prophets  of  the  Christian 
Faith."]  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Co.;  London:  James 
Clark  &  Co.,  1897. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  285 

"Primitive  Christian  Liturgies."  [In  "Christian  Worship." 
Ten  Lectures  delivered  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary, 
1896.]    New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1897. 

"Philip  Melanchthon;  An  Address  before  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  on  the  Occasion  of  the  Four  Hundredth 
Anniversary  of  His  Birth."  [In  "The  Proceedings  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society,"  Volume  XI,  pp.  257-267.] 

"The  Message  of  Christ  to  the  Individual  Man."  [In  "The 
Message  of  Christ  to  Manhood":  being  the  Noble  Lectures 
for  1898.]     Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.,  1899. 

"Protestantism."  New  York  Sun,  March,  1901.  [Also  Harper 
&  Brothers,   1901.] 

"The  Place  of  Edwards  in  History."  [In  "Jonathan  Edwards: 
a  Retrospect."]     Boston:  Houghton,   Mifflin,  &  Co.,  1901. 

"Mr.  Scudder's  Life  of  Lowell."  Atlantic  Monthly,  February, 
1902. 

"Horace  Elisha  Scudder:  an  Appreciation."  Atlantic  Monthly, 
April,  1903. 

"The  Organization  of  the  Early  Church."  American  Journal 
of  Theology,  October,  1905. 

"Palmer's  Herbert."    Atlantic  Monthly,  January,  1906. 

"Pierre  Batiffol's  L'Eucharistie,  la  presence  reelle."  The 
American  Journal  of  Theology,  January,  1906. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ABBOT,  P.  S.,  124 
Abbott,  L.,  192 
Abelard,  264 
Acton,  Lord,  225 
Affectation,  Hatred  of,  198,  266 
Albany  Summer  School,  Lectures  at, 

237/- 

Alden,  H.  M.,  128 

Alexander,  W.,  139 

Allen,  Adelaide  L.  (sister),  2,  12,  17, 
53,  62,  116,  117,  234,  281 

Allen,  A.  V.  G.,  Birth,  1;  Boyhood, 
4jf.;  Confirmation,  10;  College 
13/.;  Theological  education,  (1) 
at  Gambier,  28/.,  (2)  at  Andover, 
38/.;  Ministry  at  Lawrence,  40 
jf.\  Ordered  deacon,  42;  Ordained 
priest,  49;  Beginning  of  teaching 
in  Cambridge,  55/.;  Editor,  25, 
29;  6qff.;  Marriage  to  Miss  Stone, 
60,  63,  64;  First  in  Europe,  72jf.; 
D.  D.  Kenyon,  76;  Article  in 
Princeton  Review  (beginning  of 
reputation),  91$".;  Continuity  of 
Christian  Thought,  97  jf.;  D.  D. 
Harvard,  112;  Jonathan  Edwards, 
116  Jf.;  Christian  Institutions,  125 
Jf.;  Death  of  Mrs.  Allen,  140;  Relig- 
ious Progress,  152  jf.;  Phillips 
Brooks,  159  if.;  D.  D.  from  Yale, 
197;  Year  in  Rome,  198  jf.; 
Abridgment  of  Phillips  Brooks, 
234  f.;  Freedom  in  the  Church, 
246  jf.;  Marriage  to  Miss  Paulina 
C.  Smith,  247;  Serious  illness, 
268  J".;  Character,  270/.;  Death, 
281. 

Allen,  Elizabeth  Kent  (wife),  60,  63, 
64,  75,  118,  138,  140/. 

Allen,  Ethan  (father),  if.,  6/.,  14/., 
24/.,  34/.,  52/. 

Allen,  F.  B.,  82 

Allen,  John  S.,  (son),  70,  72,  80,  118, 
134/-,  179;  238,  267 


Allen,  Lydia  C.  B.  (mother),  2  Jf.,  12, 

17,  S°,  S3,  92,  94,  961  97,  i°5,  i°9> 

115,  "°, 117 
Allen,  Henry  J.  W.  (brother),  2,  12, 

17,  28,  62,  64,  67,  82,  94,  100,  108, 

171,  183,  197,  200 
Allen,  Mrs.  H.  J.  W.,  234 
Allen,  Henry  V.  D.,  (son),  65,  118, 

134,  168,  194,  237/.,  242,  267 
Allen,  Paulina  Cony  (wife),  v,  184, 

244,  247,  264,  265 
Altars,  Form  of,  204 
Amiel,  H.  F.,  244 
Amory,  A.  H.,  191 
Amory,  Harcourt,  96 
Amory,  J.  S.,  96 
Ancient  Liturgies,  169 
Andover,  38 Jf.,  115,  125,  280 
Anselm,  45,  109,  120,  244 
Anti-Imperialism,  Scorn  of,  267 
Apocryphal  Gospels,  156 
Apostolical  Succession,  61,  68 
Argyle,  Bishop  of,  95 
Aristotle,  254 

Arius,  orthodox  on  Virgin  Birth,  157 
Arnold,  M.,  45,  119 
Articles,  The  XXXIX,  4,  155,   157, 

238/.,  240,  258,  260 
Assisi,  206 

Athanasian  Creed,  199  . 
Atonement,  109,  268 
Augustine,  St.,   108,  126,   149,  231, 

244,  259,  261,  263 
Avignon,  199 

BALLOU,  H.,  137 
Baptists,  87,  185,  229,  272 
Baring-Gould,  S.,  245 
Bartol,  C.  A.,  84 
Bashkirtseff,  M.,  126 
Basil,  St.,  108 
Bates,  E.,  16 
Batiffol,  Pierre,  259 
Baur,  F.  C,  30,  103 


289 


290 


INDEX 


Bedell,  G.  T.,  15,  20,  25,  29,  274 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  60,  92 

Bennett,  E.  H.,  91,  180 

Bernard,  St.,  45,  281 

Bible,  The,  244,  249,  251/.,  255,  260, 
265,  266 

Bibliography,  283  f. 

Biography,  Method  of  Writing,  179 

Bishops,  186,  225/. 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  97 

Boethius,  244 

Bohlen  Lectures,  92 

Borden  case,  139 

BoswelPs  Johnson,  193 

Botticelli,  S.,  269 

Bowne,  B.  P.,  250 

Boxford,  91,  93,  97,  103,  105/.,  in 

Boyd-Carpenter,  W.,  142,  221 

Brace,  Miss,  145/.,  170,  195 

Brent,  C.  H.,  229/.,  280 

Breviary,  Roman,  137,  172 

Briggs,  C.  A.,  125,  131,  133,  172, 
200 

Brinton,  J.  H.,  196 

Britannica,  Use  of  the,  120 

Brooks,  Arthur,  159 

Brooks,  Mrs.  Arthur,  159,  170 

Brooks,  Phillips,  5,  n,  56,  59,  60, 
68,  69,  73,  74,  79,  80,  82,  84,  92, 
93,  96,  100,  122,  123,  125,  126, 
131,  132,  137/.,  140/.,  143/-, 
152,  159,  163,  165,  171,  173,  174, 
!77>  J79,  J8o,  183  f.  (Chapter 
XIX),  220,  234,  243,  256,  257,  260, 
269,  273,  274 

Browne,  Percy,  18,  38/.,  50,  66,  70, 
78,  82,  132,  197,  201 

Browning,  R.,  167,  173 

Bunyan,  J.,  216 

Burnham,  J.  A.,  80,  91 

Burr,  Jonathan,  2 

Burr,Lydia  Child,  vide  L.  C.  B.  Allen 

Burton,  E.  D.,  228 

Bushnell,  H.,  45,  111,  137,  184 

CALVIN,  John,  74,  75,  126,  231 
Cambridgeport,  228 
Canada,  195 
Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  112,  220, 

221 
Carlyle,  T.,  35,  96,  134 
Catacombs,  198 
Channing,  W.  E.,  137 


Character  of  A.  V.  G.  A,  270 Jf. 

Charity,  Methods  in,  214 

Charlemagne,  200 

Cheerfulness,  Duty  of,  230 

Cheney,  C.  E.,  60,  61 

Cheyne,  T.  K.,  173 

Chicago,  Lectures  at  University  of, 

223,  227/.,  228 
Children,  Sympathy  with,  266 
China,  Missions  to,  241 
Christian  Institutions,  125,  131,  133, 

134,    i3S>    144,    159,   168,  171/., 

175,  181,  245,  265,  274 
Christian  Witness,  60,  224 
Chronological  Table,  xi 
Chrysostom,  St.  John,  108 
Church  buildings,  207 
Church  Congress,  Founding  of,  67 
Church  Unity,  86,  115/.,  205,269,271 
Churchmanship  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  40/., 

87,274/. 
Church,  R.  W.,  154 
Civil  War,  20/.,  28/. 
Clark,  T.M.,  82,  133 
Clark  University,  127 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  63,  104,  108, 

277 
Clement  VII,  205 
Cleveland,  Grover,  97,  112 
Clericus  Club  of  Boston,  60,  68,  69, 

70,  82,  131,  137,  220,  234,  263 
Clifford,  E.,  101/. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  31,  32,  81,  160,  162, 

175,  207,  271 
Congregationalists,  87,  117,  189,  211 
Confirmation  of,  A.  V.  G.  A.  10 
Congress,  U.  S.,  178 
Conscience,  267 
Constantine,  205 
Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  94, 

97,  98,  106,  107,  112/,  128,  132, 

134,  142,  146,  185,  188,  221,  273 
Cornell  University,  127 
Crapsey,  A.  S.,  234/. 
Creeds,  The,  84/.,   128/.,   156/., 

236,  238/.,  249,  258 
Creighton,  M.,  224/.,  257 
Cook,  Joseph,  47,  86,  147 
Cooke,  Mrs.  J.  P.,  214 
Cunningham,  H.  C.,  82 


D 


ANTE,  133 
Davidson,  R.  T.,  112,  220,  221 


INDEX 


291 


Davies,  Llewellyn,  74 

Davis,  E.  L.,  152 

Davis,  M.,  75 

Dean    Stanley    and    the    Traclarian 

Movement,  150 
Deism,  English,  82 
de  Koven,  J.,  65,  75 
Deland,  Margaret,  145,  193 
de  Quincey,  Thomas,  32,  44 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  175 
Disraeli,  B.,  94 
Divorce,  Canons  on,  197 
Dix,  M.,  83,  131 
Docetism,  233 
Dods,  M.,  151 
Donald,  E.  W.,  192 
Donatists,  263 
Dorner,  I.  A.,  69 
Doty,  W.  D.,  16,  39 
Doubt,  Heroism  of,  155 
Douma,  The,  and  the  Czar,  240 
Dresden,  207 
Drown,  E.  S.,  v,  122,  261 
Dualism,  231 
Duchesne,  Louis,  205 
Dudleian  Lecture,  217-219,  257 
Dyer,  H.,  56,  69,  92 

EASTBURN,  M.,  3,  si;  49,  5', 
63,65 

East  Cambridge,  Church  of  the  As- 
cension, 75,  77,  94,  107 

Eddy,  M.  B.,  265 

Edinburgh,  151 

Editor,  A.  V.  G.  A.  as,  25,  29,  224 

Edward  VII,  206,  208 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  14,  45,  in,  114, 
116,  117,  118,  120,  124/.,  132, 
188/.,  274 

Egypt,  91 

Elijah,  The,  243 

Eliot,  C.  W.,  121 

Eliot,  George,  30,  62 

Ellison,  J.  H.  J.,  257 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  71,  76,  181,  215, 
217 

Emerton,  E.,  121 

Emmons,  Nathanael,  137 

Endicott,  W.  C,  253 

England,  Church  of,  137,  239,  250, 
267 

English  Theology  compared  with 
German,  237 


Episcopal   Church,   87,    205,    211  j$. 

Episcopal  Theological  School  in 
Cambridge,  55/.,  63,  65,  66/., 
68,  69,  75,  79,  80,  83,  86,  89,  91, 
93,  96,  106,  112,  115,  119  fl.,  122, 
131,  138/.,  143,  145,  146,  147/-, 
152,  154/.,  165,  180,  195,  217,  218, 
222,  227,  245,  253^.,  268,  270,  281 

Essays  and  Reviews,  45 

Everett,  C.  C,  147 

FABER,  F.  W.,  71,  264 
Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  123 

Faith  and  Tradition,  232  jj. 

Fay,  C.  K.,  180 

Ferrar,  N.,  231 

Feuerbach,  L.  A.,  30 

Fisher,  G.  P.,  88 

Fiske,  John,  128,  273 

Fourth  Gospel,  104 

Frame,  J.  E.,  113 

Francis,  St.,  170,  206,  233 

Frankfurt,  207 

Frederick  Dcnnison  Maurice,  161  /., 
164,  167 

Freedom  in  the  Church,  238  Jf.,  246^., 
274 

Froude,  J.  A.,  45;  Rank  of,  as  his- 
torian, 202/. 

Froude,  Miss,  200,  202 

GARDINER,     Henrietta,      118, 
132, 13S 
General     Convention,      (1875)      67, 

(1884)    103,    (1901)     197,    (1904) 

220/.,  (1907)  257,  258 
Gibbons,  James,  177 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  94 
Gnosticism,  268 
Godkin,  E.  L.,  224 
Goethe,  J.  W.,  45,  207 
Gordon,  G.  A.,   114,   151,   153,   170, 

192,  249,  274 
Gore,  C,  176 
Gothic  architecture,  207 
Gray,  G.  Z.,  Dean,  69,  89,  122,  125 
Gray,  Mrs.  180 
Gray,  Thomas,  136 
Greek  Church,   102,   104,   157,   199, 

212,  258 
Greer,  D.  H.,  29 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  277 
Gregory  I,  Pope,  241 


INDEX 


292 

Gregory  VII,  231 
Griswold,  A.  V.,  i,  3 
Guilford,  7/.,  22 

HALL,  A.  C.  A.,  138 
Hall,  G.  Stanley,  106 
Hard  Church,  101 
Harding,  Thomas,  the  Jesuit,  158 
Harnack,   A,   170,   174/-,   221,   232, 

255,  275 
Harvard  University,  89, 112, 121,  124, 

126,  127,  171,  198 
Hay,  John,  217 
Heard,  J.  B.,  128 
Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  105,  127,  136 
Herbert,  George,  220,  223,  226,  231 
High  Church,  231 
Hildebrand,  St.,  231 
Historian,  Place  of  A.  V.  G.  A.  as, 

273/. 
History,  The  Study  of,  87,  202,  281 
Hoar,  G.  F.,  112 
Hodges,  George,  Dean,  v,  145,  146, 

218,  227 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  112,  122 
Homestead,  Riots  at,  139 
Hopkins,  Mark,  127,  128 
Hopkins,  S.,  136 

Hulsean  Lectures  and  Continuity,  128 
Hume,  David,  202 
Humour  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  278/. 
Huntington,  F.  D.,  76,  179 
Huntington,  W.  R.,   51,   7°,   102/., 

139,  191,  280 
Hutton,  R.  H.,  167 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  236 
Hymns,  Favourite,  71,  264 

IDEALIZING,  Meaning  of,  132/. 
Immanence,  90,  et  vide  Continuity 
Incarnation,  The,  109 
Ingersoll,  R.  G.,  86 
Ingram,  A.  F.  W.,  289 
Insanity,  Meaning  of,  146,  262 
Isaiah,  270 

JAMES,  William,  216/.,  228,  230, 
243,  276,  278 
Japanese  War  with  Russia,  223 
Jerome,  St.,  149 
Jesuits,  267 
Jewell,  John,  13,  158 
Jews,  272 


Job, 127 

John  XXII,  199 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  106,  127 

Johnson,  Samuel,  127 

Justification  by  Faith,  268 

KAULBACH'S    Heroes    of    the 
Reformation,  94 
Keble,  John,  45,  202,  231 
Kellen,  W.  V.,  222 
Kellner,  M.  L.,  n  1,  266 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  244 
Kenosis,  178 

Kenyon  College,  13/.,  76 
Kidner,  R.,  189 
Kingsley,  C.,  45,  66 
Knox,  J.,  231 
Kurtz,  J.  H.,  148 

LAMB,  Charles,  32,  44 
Latimer,  H.,  158 
Lawrence,  Amos  A.,  63,  91,  96,  106 
Lawrence,  Arthur,  55 
Lawrence,  W.,  Dean  and  Bishop,  v, 

106,  112,  121/.,  145,  J46,  187,  190, 

220,  221,  257,  271,  280 
Lawrence,  City  of,  40  Jf. 
Learoyd,  C.  H.,  82,  191,  197 
Lechler,  G.  V.,  120 
Lectures,  Sympathy  required  for,  247 
Lee,  J.  H.,  69 
Lee,  Joseph,  265 
Lent,  226 

Leo  XIII,  169,  214/. 
Lester,  C.  S.,  57 
Liddon,  H.  P.,  73,  231 
Lightfoot,  J.  B.,  74 
Lincoln,  W.  H.,  180,  187 
Locke,  G.  L.,  200 
Locke,  John,  82 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  236,  265 
Loisy,  A.,  232 
London,  72/.,  151 
London,  Bishop  of,  289 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  60,  66 
Louis,  St.,  of  France,  155 
Lowell,  Mrs.  Augustus,  165 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  112,  198 
Lowell  Lectures,  131,  138 
Loyola,  Ignatius,  126 
Ludlow,  J.  M.,  152 
Luther,  M.,  17,  93, 95, 126, 149,  207/. 
Lux  Mundi,  158 


INDEX 


293 


MABIE,  H.  W.,  131 
Macaulay,  T.  B.,  202 

McCosh,  James,  91,  112 

McGiffert,  A.  C,  176 

Mcllhenny,  John  J.,  29 

Mcllvaine,  C.  P.,  16,  29,  274 

McKenzie,  A.,  266 

MacQueary,  H.,  128 

Madonna  in  Art,  Beginning  of,  206 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  86 

Manning,  H.  E.,  74,  183,  202 

Marcus  Aurelius,  244 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  157 

Mason,  R.  M.,  59,  80 

Massachusetts,  Bishops  of,  vide 
Griswold  (Eastern  Diocese),  East- 
burn,  Paddock,  Brooks,  Lawrence 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
107,  170 

Matthews,  Shailer,  228 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  32,  81,  ioi,  123,  161, 
167,  271 

Melancthon,  P.,  107/. 

Mellish,  J.  H.,  180 

Message  of  Christ  to  the  Individual 
Man,  177 

Mill,  J.  S.,  30 

Ministers'  Club,  68,  90,  114 

Ministry,  258/. 

Minucius  Felix,  277 

Miracles,  167,  171,  250  /. 

Mitchell,  S.  W.,  193 

Mohammedans,  91 

Monnikcndam,  208 

Montanists,  267 

Moody,  D.  L.,  71,  72,  272 

Mozley,  J.  B.,  76 

Mr.  Scudder's  Life  of  Lowell,  198 

Mulford,  Elisha,  81,  82/.,  87,  89, 
92,  106,   no/.,  137,  191 

Munger,  T.  T.,  96,  184,  191 

Murray,  John,  Founder  of  Uni- 
versalists,  137 

Music,  6,  8,  24,  98,  135/.,  243/. 

Mysticism,  83,  105,  245 

NAME  of  Church,  211/. 
Nantucket,  3-7,  53,  137,  261 
Napoleon,  74 

Nash,  H.  S.,  v,  91,  93,  238,  253 
Nation,  The  New  York,  61,  75,  140, 

179,  192,  248 
Nature,  127 


Neo-Platonists,  63 

Newman,  J.  H.,  3,  78,  147,  177,  202, 

231 
New  Testament,   265,  et  vide  Bible 
Newton,  W.  W.,  82 
New  York,  Bishops  of,  vide  Potter, 

Greer 
Nicaea,  Council  of,  always  in  session, 

253 
Noble,  W.  B.,  171 
Noble  Lectures,  177 
Norman  Period  of  the  British  Church, 

The,  122 
North  Chatham,  257 
North  Hatley,  195  /. 
Novatians,  The,  277 
Novel,  Need  of  good  ecclesiastical, 


OXFORD  Movement,   154,  169, 
182,  195,  202,  231,  239/.,  255 

Old  Catholics,  70 
Old  Testament,  242,  265,  et  vide  Bible 
Optimism,  Protest  against  historical, 

126 
Orders,  169 

Ordination  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  42,  49 
Organization    in   Church    compared 

to  Metre  in  Poetry,  233 
Origen,  104,  268,  270 
Otis,  if.,  172 

PACKARD,  GEORGE,  37,  56 
Paddock,  B.  H.,  65,  68,  79 
Paine,  Robert  Treat,  93,  180,  190 
Palmer,  G.  H.,  v,  44,  in,  116,  121, 

126,  220,  223,  226,  231,  271 
Palmer's  Herbert,  231 
Panama,  217 
Papal  Jubilee,  205 

Paradox,  Living  Definition  of,   271 
Paris,  74,  198 
Park,  Edwards  A.,  39^".,  46,  47/.,  51, 

52,  59,  92,  no,  112,  114,  118,  186 
Parker,  Theodore,  in,  137 
Parks,  L.,  132 

Pastoral  Letter  of  1894,  153  jf. 
Patrologia,  Use  of,  121 
Paul,  St.,  2,  69,  96,  103/.,  157,  176, 

201 
Payne,  John,  15 
Peabody,  E.,  99 
Peabody,  G.  F.,  247 


294 


INDEX 


Peace   Movements,    Contempt    for, 

267 
Peaslee,  A.  N.,  248 
Perry,  Bliss,  184,  266 
Perry,  Carroll,  263 
Perugia,  206  f. 
Pfleiderer,  O.,  103 
Phelps,  Austin,  48 
Phelps,  J.  W.,  8,  53 
Phelps,  Helen,  8 
Philippines,  184 

Philip  Melanchthon :  An  Address,  1 70 
Phillips,  Wendell,  82 
Phillips  Place   became   home   of   A. 

V.  G.  A.,  93 
Pius  IX,  202 
Plato,  87,  268 
Plotinus,  268 

Poetry,  32,  44/.,  71,  119,  167,  264 
Pope,  A.,  127 

Popes,  The,  127,  219,  241,  252 
Pope's  Bull,  The,  169 

Postlethwaite,  W.  M.,  16,  19,  62,  63, 
143,  166/. 

Potter,  A.,  58 

Potter,  H.  C,  65,  198 

Pragmatism,  227/.,  260 

Prayer,  40,  265;    for  the  Dead,  131 

Prayer  Book  Revision,  Estimate  of, 
103 

Preaching,  43 

Pre-Raphaelites,  269 

Presbyterians,  87,  117,  211,  226 

Presbyters,  225 

Presence  of  Christ,  263 

Presence  of  God,  87 

Preston,  J.  W.,  107 

Price  Lectures,  51 

Primitive  Christian  Liturgies,  169 

Probation,  95 

Protestantism  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  275 

Psychic  Research,  Attitude  towards, 
271 

Psychotherapy,  272 

Punishment,  Endless,  45/. 

Purgatory,  226 

Puritanism,  149,  208,  220,  231,  257, 
267 

Pusey,  E.  B.,  147,  i54,  157,  162,  181, 
191,  202,  231,  268 

Putnam,  J.  P.,  55,  91 


9    THE    DOCUMENT    called, 
how  related  to  St.  Paul,  265, 
Questions,  Modern,  Attitude 
towards  271 
Quakers,  87,  273 

RAND,  E.  S.,  55,  Qi 
Raphael,  254,  273 
Rationalist,  The,  83 
Reason,  The  Universal,  133/. 
Reed,  B.  T.,  55,  66,  218 
Reed,  Mrs.  B.  T.,  66,  218 
Reformation,    The    Protestant,    71, 

157,  158,  210,  225,  254,  280 
Reformed  Episcopal  Church,  61,  68, 

70 
Rehoboth  6/.,   62,  116 
Religious  Progress,  152/. 
Renaissance  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 

The  Theological,  91  f.,  99 
Renan,  Ernest,  93 
Reserve  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  242,  243 
Reville,  A.,  168 
Rhinelander,  P.  M.,  253 
Rice,  A.  H.,  in,  165 
Richards,  C.  A.  L.,  82 
Ripon,  Bishop  of,  142,  221 
Ritchie,  T.,  106 
Ritualists,  169,  182,  225 
Robbins,  W.  L.,  257 
Robert  Elsmere,  124,  245 
Robertson,  F.  W.,  22,  49,  164 
Rochester,  Bishop  of,  106,  115 
Roman  Church,  149,  156,  199,  202, 

204,    211/.,    219,    239,    250,    252, 

257,  260,  280 
Rome,   Winter  of   A.  V.  G.  A.  in, 


Rome,  Pagan,  204 
Roosevelt,  T.,  217 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  269 
Rothe,  R.,  269 
Ropes,  James  H.,  157 
Ropes,  John  C,  102 
Royce,  J.,  121,  140 
Rubens,  P.  P.,  72 

SACRAMENTS,  THE,  62,  84,86, 
259/- 
Saguenay,  The,  196 
Saltonstall,  L.,  80 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  160 
Sanday,  W.,  222,  232 


INDEX 


295 


Santayana,  G.,  230 

Savage,  M.  J.,  128/. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.,  230 

Scotch  preaching,  151 

S:udder,  H.  E.,  82,   117,   127,  143, 

180,  191,  198,  201 
Scudder,  W.,  185,  195,  222 
Seabury,  Samuel,  101 
Self-examination,  10 
Seminars  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  149 
Servants,  209,  213 
Shepard,  E.  M.,  235 
Smith,  Alice  W.,  174,  184 
Smith,  Goldwin,  91 
Smith,  J.  C,  60 
Smith,  Paulina  C.,  vide  Allen 
Smith,  R.  Cotton,  200 
Smyth,  E.  G.,  48,  107/.,  125 
Smyth,  Newman,  269 
Social  Questions,  139 
Somerville  Asylum   for   the   Insane, 

64,  65,  77  . 
Sources  in  History,  120 
Southey,  R.,  32 
Spanish  War,  179 
Spectator,  The,  152,  218,  248 
Spiritualism,  259,  265 
Spiritual  Motherhood,  158 
Stanley,  A.  P.,  45,  60/.,  72,  147,  150, 

259 
Stanton,  E.,  75 
State,  Protestant,  280 
Stead,  W.  T.,  267 
Steenstra,  P.  H.,  55,  56,  58,  93,  139, 

218,  253 
Stetson,  F.  L.,  221 
Stokes,  A.  P.,  269 
Stone,  Elizabeth  Kent,  vide  Allen 
Stone,    John    S.,    Dean,    55,    56/., 

59  /.,  68,  69,  89,  92,  94,  269 
Stone,  Mrs.  J.  S.,  144 
Stone,  Kent,  57,  137 
Stone,  Philip  S.,  125 
Stone,  Mrs.  P.  S.,  144 
Strauss,  D.  F.,  30 
Sullivan,  E.  T.,  276 
Suter,  J.  W.,  195,  277/. 
Sympathy  of  A.  V.  G.  A.,  37,  42, 

79,  203,  240,  242,  261,  262,  266 

TAFT,  W.  H.,  280 
Talmud,  The,  265 
Taylor,  W.  W.,  v,  18,  40,  44,  45,  49, 


62,  70,  75,  77,  92,  119,  125,  166, 
168,  172,  178,  185,  195,  209,  214, 
220,  227,  230,  245,  272 
Teaching,  Experience  and  Methods  of 
A.   V.   G.   A.   in,  11,  148/.,  229, 

247,  275 
Temple,  Frederick,  45,  264 
Tennyson,  A.,  244 
Thayer,  J.  H.,  114,  201 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  268 
Theology,  New  England,  280 
Thomas,  A.,  215,  263 
Thomas,  G.  H.,  215 
Thorold,  A.  W.,  106,  115 
Tract  XC,  1,  177 
Transcript,  Boston,  184 
Transition  in  New  England  Theology, 

The,  136 
Transubstantiation,  204,  259 
Trent,  Council  of,  95,  239,  265 
Trimble,  J-,  23 
Trinity,  Lectures  on,  276 
Trollope,  A.,  245 
Tubingen  School,  The,  105 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  203 
Tyler,  S.,  215 
Tyng,  T.,  268 


u 


NION  Seminary,  169,  231 
Unitarianism,  in,  128  /.,  i? 
236 


VAUGHAN,  C.  J.,  73 
Vaughan's    Hours    with    the 

Mystics,  R.,  45 
Ventura,  G.,  181 
Vincent,  Boyd,  241 
Vinton,  A.  H.,  79,  269 
Virgin  Birth,  The,  124,  155  Jf.,  236, 

249,  250 
Visions,  always   in  beautiful  places, 

205,  206 
Visitors,  Board  of,  68,  96 
Vocation,  126 
Vow,  The  supreme,  243 

TT7ARD,  Mrs.  Humphry,   124, 

Wardner,  G.,  126 
Walpole,  G.  H.  S.,  257 
Washburn,  H.  B.,  195 
Waterville,  145 
Westcott,  B.  F.,  99,  177 


296 


INDEX 


Western  Episcopalian,  The,  25,  28/., 

224 
Westminster  Abbey,  72,  73,  151 
Westminster  Review,  30/. 
Wharton,  Francis,  17/.,    22/.,    26/., 

2Q>  37,  5i,  56,  58,  66,  68,  82,  91, 

122 
Whatham,  A.  E.,  178 
White,  J.  Gardner,  253 
White,  W.,  58,  101 
Whitehouse,  H.  J.,  2 
Wilberforce  on  The  Incarnation,  157 


William  II,  188,  191 

Winthrop,  R.  C,  55,  91,  152 

Winthrop  Hall,  139 

Wittenberg,  207 

Wordsworth,  W.,  32,  44,  151,  205 

Worship,  encircling  the  earth,  136 

Wright,  J.  G.,  253 

Wright,  G.  F.,  259 

Wyclif,  120 


Y 


ALE  University,  150,  194,  197, 


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nmo,  Cloth.        $1.00  Net.        By  Mail  $1.08 

".  .  .  .  This  brief  biography  has  a  message  for  the  divinity 
student  who  is  shaping  his  ideals  of  the  ministry;  for  the 
young  clergymen  who  needs  a  tonic  of  simplicity  and  self- 
forgetfulness;  and  for  the  older  clergy  who  have  got  some  of 
the  iron  of  indifference  and  bitterness  into  their  souls.  We 
all  might  with  profit  be  more  like  Atkinson." 

—  The  Living  Church. 

"...  Dean  Slattery  lias  given  us  a  stimulating  and  delight- 
ful picture  of  a  character  that  was  fresh,  buoyant,  and  origi- 
nal. The  author  has  obliterated  himself  and  we  see  only 
Atkinson  in  his  pages.  Any  young  man  who  picks  up  this 
little  book  will  not  lay  it  down  until  he  finishes  it.  .  .  ." 

—  The  Church  Militant. 


FELIX   REVILLE   BRUNOT 

1820-1898 

A  Civilian  in  the  War  for  the  Union.    President  of 
the  First  Board  of  Indian  Commissioners 

By  CHARLES   LEWIS   SLATTERY 

With  9  Portraits  and  Illustrations,  and  a  Map 
Crown  8vo.    $2.00 

"Mr.  Slattery  has  given  us  a  graphic  picture  of  a  good 
man,  whose  face  and  figure  were  true  symbols  of  his  char- 
acter; he  has  made  us  acquainted  with  a  noble  soul.  All 
such  books  are  contributions  to  spiritual  progress.  They  are 
precious  possessions." 

—  Dean  Hodges  in  the  Church  Standard. 

LONGMANS,  GREEN   &  CO.,  New  York 


By  the  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.D. 
Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islands 


ADVENTURE  FOR  GOD 

Crown,  8vo,  $1.10  net ;  by  mail,  $  1.18 

Contents:  /.  The  Vision;  II.  The  Appeal;  III.  The  Response; 
IV.  The  Quest;  V.  The  Equipment;  VI.  The  Goal. 

"...  The  Bishop  writes  with  great  earnestness  and  enthu- 
siasm, and  in  a  broad-mindedness  that  is  especially  manifested 
in  his  attitude  toward  heathen  religions.  He  does  not  regard 
them  as  wholly  false  or  evil,  but  as  having  some  dim  dawn- 
ings  of  truth,  'broken  lights'  of  the  great  central  orb  of  eter- 
nal righteousness.  Bishop  Brent's  volume  will  be  a  welcome 
addition  to  the  rapidly  growing  literature  of  missions." 

Christian  Work. 

"  .  .  .  Bishop  Brent  is  an  enthusiast  for  the  missionary  qual- 
ity of  Christian  thought  and  life,  and  he  enforces  his  theme 
with  a  delightful  and  masculine  power  and  charm.  ...  In  his 
handling  of  questions  which  concern  other  religions  and  their 
relation  to  Christianity,  this  breadth  of  vision  has  its  most 
wholesome  and  winning  effect,  and  swiftly  gains  the  confi- 
dence of  the  reader.  ..."  The  Congregationalism 

"This  volume  is  of  singularly  living  interest.  Lectures  on  the 
Paddock  foundation  that  have  to  deal  rather  with  what  may 
be  called  the  poetry  of  missions  than  with  theological  pro- 
blems, afford,  no  doubt,  a  striking  contrast  to  previous  vol- 
umes of  those  lectures,  but  the  contrast  is  not  one  in  which 
the  value  of  the  present  volume  becomes  lessened.  We  have 
here  no  direct  discussion  of  missionary  problems,  but  rather 
an  original  manner  of  treatment  of  the  missionary  life  from 
the  personal  point  of  view.  The  volume  is  of  interest  quite 
as  truly  as  of  value."  The  Living  Church. 


LONGMANS,  GREEN  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


By  the  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.D. 
Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islands 


LIBERTY  AND  OTHER  SERMONS 

Crown  8vo,  $1.00  net.  By  mail,  $1.08 

Contents  :  Liberty;  Truth  in  the  Inward  Parts;  Health;  Riot  and 
Harmony;  Compassion;  Dedication;  The  Commendable  Debt; 
Christmas  Haste ;  The  Garden  of  the  Lord;  Opportunity  and  Risk; 
Two  Shakespearian  Sermons  for  the  Times:  (i)  Portia 
Preaches;  (ii)  Othello  Preaches;  Two  Addresses  :  (i)  Patriotism; 
(ii)  The  True  Corner-stone;  L' envoi. 

" .  .  .  The  reading  will  disclose,  with  the  terseness  of  the 
thought  and  its  inherent  vitality,  a  clarity  of  vision  and  con- 
sequently of  style  which  entitle  the  least  of  the  sermons  and 
addresses  in  the  volume  to  rank  as  literature.  Finally,  they 
have  bieadth,  both  in  the  selection  of  topics  for  discussion,  and 
in  the  views  imparted  during  discussion.  .  .  .  The  book  is  a 
contribution  to  the  thought  of  the  age  that  proves  its  own  im- 
portance. .  ."  Chicago  Daily  News. 

".  .  .  Interwoven  with  all  the  practical  grasp  of  conditions 
with  the  wide  reading  which  follows  the  latest  researches  of 
physical,  historical  and  psychological  science  with  as  eager  en- 
joyment as  the  purely  literary  recreations  afforded  by  present 
or  past  masters,  there  runs  through  the  bishop's  life  and  word 
the  best  that  mediaeval  chivalry  has  to  offer,  a  vein  of  true 
romance,  a  dauntless  battling  with  opposing  foes  and  the  fresh 
spirit  of  never-dying  youth.  .  .  ."  Transcript,  Boston. 

"...  Shows  his  power  as  a  preacher  of  righteousness  who  has 
the  larger  grasp  and  wider  outlook  of  a  true  prophet  of  his 
age.  The  sermons  are  widely  different  in  character,  having 
been  preached  on  various  occasions  to  very  different  mixed 
congregations,  but  through  them  all  runs  the  same  clear  vi- 
sion. .  .  ."  The  Churchman. 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY    LIBRARIES 

This  book  is  due  on  the  date  indicated  below,  or  at  the 
expiration  of  a  definite  period  after  the  date  of  borrowing,  as 
provided  by  the  library  rules  or  by  special  arrangement  with 
the  Librarian  in  charge. 


DATE  EORROWEO 

DATE  DUE 

1 
DATE  BORROWED      1            DATE   DUE 

C28  (747)  MIOO 

->         colUMBIi 


;6RABlES 


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937.09 


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937.09 


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Slattery 

Alexander  Viets  Griswold  Allen. 


MAY  2     L 


BRITTLE  DO  NOT 
PHOTOCOPY 


01 HY     4  1949 


